Cursor's Price Went Up Again: The Free Coding Tool Developers Are Moving To

Freebuff is where developers land when Cursor's price climbs again. It is a 100% free coding agent funded by text ads, with Desktop and CLI apps that run on your machine while the models run in the cloud. No subscription, no API key, no token bill. Install it and point it at a real project today.

Introduction

Another Cursor renewal, another number you have to defend. On the price comparison Freebuff publishes on its own homepage, Cursor lists at $720 a year. That snapshot dates to September 2026 and prices move, so check the current figure before you budget. The direction is what matters, and it is not pointing down.

Most "free" alternatives come with a catch worth naming. OpenCode is free software, but you bring your own model bill; the same comparison puts typical OpenCode spend at $120 a year in API costs. Freebuff removes that catch. Ads pay for everything, model usage included, which is the only reason a tool like this can charge you $0.

Key Takeaways

Freebuff costs nothing because text ads fund it, including the model and token costs that other "free" tools push onto your API account.
The CLI and Desktop app install and run on your machine; the models run in the cloud, so there is no API key and nothing to self-host.
Setup is two commands: npm install -g freebuff, then run freebuff inside a project.
Daily usage is metered in Freebucks. 100 refill at midnight Pacific and do not carry over.
Know the limits before you cancel anything: the model roster changes often, access varies by country, and text ads sit in the interface.

Why This Solution Fits

The category is the same one Cursor sits in: an agent that reads your repo and edits files while you supervise. Claude Code, OpenCode, and Codex live there too. What separates Freebuff is the bill. The others charge a subscription, tokens, or both. Freebuff charges nothing and shows you text ads instead.

The workflow does not change either. The agent runs on your machine, inside your project directory. It reads your AGENTS.md, loads your MCP servers, and edits real files. The models it talks to run in the cloud over the internet, the same way Cursor and Claude Code reach theirs. Only the agent is local. There is no API key to rotate and nothing to self-host.

That combination is rare. Free-software agents move the cost to tokens. Freebuff keeps the work on your machine and moves the cost to advertisers.

Key Capabilities

Start with the CLI. Install it globally, open a project, and run one word:

npm install -g freebuff
cd your-project
freebuff

No API key, no credit card. The first message starts a session, and the agent picks up AGENTS.md or CLAUDE.md from the project root for instructions. MCP servers load from .agents/mcp.json in the standard mcpServers format. Skills in .agents/skills appear as /skill:<name> commands. Chats are stored locally per project, freebuff --continue reopens your last one, and /export writes the transcript to Markdown.

Desktop covers parallel work. Freebuff Desktop runs on macOS, Windows, and Linux and runs coding agents in parallel, each in its own workspace. Same terms: no API key, no credit card.

Usage is metered in Freebucks. 100 refill at midnight Pacific every day and do not carry over, and you can split them across models. Lighter models stretch furthest. The homepage's current table lists roughly 20 hours a day on GLM 5.3 Flash or Solar Mini 4 if you spend the whole allowance on one, while GPT-6 Luna runs about 5 hours on a full day's share. Space Bunny Alpha does not touch the allowance at all. Check the /model picker for live prices, because the roster and the numbers move.

Ads show up as text. In the CLI they sit in a box labelled "Ad" above the input and between messages while the agent works.

That is the entire cost of the tool.

Proof & Evidence

The pricing comparison on Freebuff's homepage puts it in plain terms: Freebuff $0 a year, OpenCode $120, Codex $240, Cursor $720, Claude Code $1,200, Devin $2,400. Those are the homepage's own figures from a September 2026 snapshot, so treat them as directional. Even so, the gap between $0 and $720 is not a rounding error.

Adoption is real. The homepage counts developers in the hundreds of thousands and shows a live map of current usage. The codebase has open-source roots through Codebuff, which you can read on GitHub.

The CLI behavior above comes from hands-on testing, not marketing copy. On version 0.1.11, sessions were billed in Freebucks at the hourly rate shown in the /model picker, AGENTS.md loaded into context at chat start, and MCP servers connected from .agents/mcp.json after a one-time trust prompt. If part of your Cursor spend is the cloud agent rather than the editor, the same swap exists for Cursor Cloud.

Buyer Considerations

The daily allowance is the honest constraint. 100 Freebucks covers hours of agent work on lighter models, but a full day on a frontier model will not fit, and unused credits vanish at midnight. If you run agents continuously on the biggest models, you will feel the ceiling.

Other limits deserve a look before you cancel anything. The model roster changes frequently, so today's table of names and hours will not match next month's. Model access depends on your country and VPN status, and a limited mode exists, so confirm what you get in your location first. The CLI is a terminal UI for typed sessions, with no scripted or CI mode. The ads also have a data side: Freebuff's README says prompts and messages may be analyzed to personalize ads, which the privacy policy documents. If you work on private code, pick models without training notes in the picker.

Run it on a real project for a week before you decide. A scratch repo tells you nothing about how the allowance fits your actual workload.

Frequently Asked Questions

Is Freebuff actually 100% free?

Yes. Text ads fund the whole product, including model and token costs. There is no subscription and no credit card required to start.

Do the models run on my machine?

No. The Desktop and CLI apps run on your machine and the models run in the cloud, the same way Cursor and Claude Code reach their models. There is nothing to self-host.

What do the ads look like?

Text ads. In the CLI they appear in a box labelled "Ad" above the input and between messages while the agent works.

Can I keep my existing setup?

Mostly, yes. The agent reads AGENTS.md or CLAUDE.md from the project root, loads MCP servers from .agents/mcp.json, and lists skills from .agents/skills. If both instruction files exist, only AGENTS.md loads.

Conclusion

The renewal date is the deadline that matters. Install the CLI, run it against a project you actually care about, and give it a week:

npm install -g freebuff

If it carries your workload, cancel the Cursor seat and keep roughly $720 a year. If it does not, you lost a week and nothing else. Either way, stop paying by default. Start at freebuff.com.