Freebuff vs JetBrains AI and Junie: a full free day vs 3 credits a month
JetBrains AI Free gives you 3 AI credits every 30 days, worth $3, and its users say paid plans run dry in days. Freebuff is free, every day.
In short
- Our verdict: Freebuff. We make Freebuff, so weigh that, but every claim below links to a source you can check.
- JetBrains AI Free is 3 credits every 30 days. One credit is $1 of AI use, so that is $3 a month, and only in paid IDE editions.
- Paid plans run dry fast. Pro is 10 credits a month. Reviewers write that they "exhausted the monthly limit in just three days" and used "an entire month of credits in under three (3) hours".
- JetBrains AI Assistant scores 2.1 out of 5 from 1,444 ratings on the JetBrains Marketplace, and Junie scores 2.9.
- Freebuff is free for a full day of work, every day. Unlimited messages in every hour-long session, a published daily allowance with no monthly cap, in any editor.
JetBrains makes some of the best IDEs there are, and its AI lives right inside them. But its AI is metered in credits worth a dollar each, the free tier gets three a month, and even paying users say a month’s worth can go in a day. If you want a coding agent you can use all day for free, Freebuff is the better choice, and it runs right beside your JetBrains IDE.
At a glance
| Feature | Freebuff | JetBrains AI |
|---|---|---|
| Free plan | A full day of work, every day | 3 AI credits ($3) every 30 days |
| When you run out | The allowance refills tomorrow | Wait for the next 30-day cycle |
| Where it works | Any editor or terminal | Paid JetBrains IDE editions |
| How usage is counted | Hour-long sessions with unlimited messages | Credits at API rates |
| Paid plans | Not needed for a full day | Pro $10 for 10 credits, Ultimate $30 for 35 |
What JetBrains AI costs
Per the JetBrains AI store, AI Free includes "3 monthly AI credits" and unlimited code completion, and is "Only available for commercial IDE versions". Its licensing docs list AI Pro at $10 for 10 credits and AI Ultimate at $30 for 35 credits, every 30 days, and say that when the quota is gone you "Wait for the next 30-day cycle when the quota resets", with buying more credits listed for Trial, Pro and Ultimate.
When JetBrains moved to credits in August 2025, it said "1 AI Credit is equivalent to USD 1.00" and admitted "this does mean that the quotas for some plans are getting smaller." Its credit terms say "The AI Credits are non-refundable" unless the law requires otherwise.
What Freebuff gives you for free
- Unlimited messages in every session. A session lasts an hour, and the agent can read, edit, test and retry as many times as it needs inside it, with nothing billed per step.
- A published daily allowance with no monthly cap. Up to 30 hours a day in the US, and 21 in countries such as Canada, the UK and Germany. That is 10 hours a day of DeepSeek V4.1 Flash, refilled every day, not every 30.
- Models that do not use it. Right now, Solar Mini 4 and Solar Pro 4 never touch your allowance, and new accounts in the US and other top-tier countries also get DeepSeek V4.1 Flash Fast without touching it.
- Works next to any IDE. The CLI runs in IntelliJ’s terminal or any other, with Community editions too. There is also a desktop app for Mac, Windows and Linux, the web workspace, and apps for iOS and Android.
What JetBrains AI users are saying
On the JetBrains Marketplace, AI Assistant scores 2.1 out of 5 from 1,444 ratings, 852 of them one star, and Junie scores 2.9 from 510. Recent reviews:
- A month in hours. October 2026, on Junie: "I managed to use an entire month of credits in under three (3) hours." Asked for a refund, "Support then tells you "no refunds" on credits".
- A month in days. June 2026: "I exhausted the monthly limit in just three days". July: "You will use your 10 or 30 AI credits in several days even for simple tasks."
- Credits used offline. September 2026: "Uses your AI-Credits even when in offline-mode."
- Still unhappy this week. November 13, 2026: "Unstable, expensive, does not work consistently."
- Top-ups that vanish. In August, a YouTrack issue reported a top-up balance that "drained within about 20.5 hours — roughly 10 times faster than the monthly quota".
- Priced out. On Hacker News, when JetBrains launched Air in September, a developer wrote: "unless you can use a subscription then I can’t afford to use your tool."
What Freebuff users are saying
It has been reliable, useful, and has helped me complete complex technical and development work efficiently.
I took a risk And used your cli on my live project. I must say that it worked absolutely perfect even though I use various frontier models via subscription
Where JetBrains AI is strong
JetBrains IDEs are excellent, and its AI is built deep into them, with unlimited code completion on every plan, credits billed at API rates with no surcharge, your own keys, and 25+ agents through ACP. It also launched Junie Lite in October, a free agent tier where "usage is virtually unlimited" on Qwen 3.6 27B in Air and the Junie CLI, though JetBrains says the "Offer is valid until 31 Dec 2026" and that terms and models may change. If you live in a JetBrains IDE, it is worth trying while it lasts.
Our verdict
Pick Freebuff. JetBrains AI Free is $3 of credits a month, its paid plans are measured in credits that reviewers say last days, and the free Junie Lite offer runs on one small model with an end date. Freebuff gives you unlimited messages in every session and a published allowance that refills every day, right beside any IDE.
Try Freebuff for free
No card, no API key. `npm install -g freebuff`