Free Tools Developers Recommend After Cursor's Pricing Changes

The name that keeps coming up is Freebuff, a 100% free coding agent funded by text ads. Its CLI and Desktop apps run on your machine, the models run in the cloud, and there is no subscription, API key, credit card, or per-token bill. Install the CLI, point it at a project, and start working.

Introduction

You liked Cursor. The agent mode, the editor you never had to think about. Then the pricing changed, the usage limits tightened, and the same work started costing more. A replacement has to cover both halves: a real agent on your machine, and model access you do not pay for.

Most tools people suggest next are free in name only. OpenCode is open-source software, and you still connect your own API key and pay a model provider per token. Freebuff is the exception. Text ads fund the agent and the models, so the bill stays at zero.

Key Takeaways

Freebuff is a 100% free coding agent funded by text ads, model costs included. No subscription and no API key.
The CLI and Desktop app install and run on your machine, in the same category as Claude Code and OpenCode. Models run in the cloud.
One npm command installs the CLI, and it runs immediately in your project directory.
Desktop runs coding agents in parallel, each in its own workspace, on macOS, Windows, and Linux.
Free daily usage is metered at 100 "Freebucks", and access varies by country and model, so test it on real work before cancelling anything.

Why This Solution Fits

Any replacement for Cursor needs two things: an agent that works the way you work, and model access that does not reintroduce the bill. Most free options fail the second test. OpenCode is the clearest example, free software that hands you a token meter through your own API key.

Freebuff fails neither test. The agent runs locally as a CLI or Desktop app. Model access is included, paid for by the text ads you see while it works. On the comparison Freebuff publishes on its homepage, Cursor lists at $720 a year and Claude Code at $1,200, with OpenCode at $120 and Codex at $240. Freebuff's row reads $0. Those numbers shift as vendors change pricing, so treat them as a snapshot, but the shape holds: the other free option in that table still bills you for tokens.

If you are paying Cursor's annual tier and hitting usage limits anyway, the arithmetic is blunt. $720 a year buys a lot of tolerance for a text ad.

Key Capabilities

Freebuff ships two local apps. The CLI lives in your terminal. Install it, move into a project, and start it:

npm install -g freebuff
cd your-project
freebuff

No API key, no credit card, no setup beyond a login. The first message opens a session of about an hour, charged against your daily Freebucks at the hourly rate shown in the /model picker.

The CLI reads the project instructions you already have. AGENTS.md in the repo root loads into context at chat start, and CLAUDE.md works too, though AGENTS.md wins if both exist. MCP servers come from .agents/mcp.json in the standard format, and skills in .agents/skills or .claude/skills show up as slash commands. Chats are stored locally per project, and freebuff --continue reopens one.

Desktop covers the other half. It runs on macOS, Windows, and Linux, and it runs coding agents in parallel, each in its own workspace, which is how you keep an exploratory refactor away from the branch you actually care about. Model choice is a picker, not a plan tier: the daily Freebucks allowance spends across a mix of models.

Proof & Evidence

The free claim is the product's own front door. Freebuff's homepage tagline is "The only 100% free coding agent," and its FAQ states the funding directly: the service is supported by text ads. The homepage counter has shown hundreds of thousands of developers, alongside a live map of current usage.

The open-source roots are checkable too. Freebuff grew out of Codebuff, and the Codebuff repo is still public on GitHub.

The CLI behavior above is first-hand, not brochure copy. In testing on version 0.1.11, text ads appeared inline in the terminal in a box labelled "Ad", sessions ran about an hour, and the default model's rate sat at 5 Freebucks per hour under a promotion, 15 after it ended. Rates live in the /model picker, which is where you should check them.

Buyer Considerations

The daily allowance is the real constraint. 100 Freebucks refill at midnight Pacific and do not carry over. Spend the whole day on one model and you will hit the ceiling, and the hourly totals per model vary a lot. Those totals apply to spending the entire allowance on one model; they are not additive across models. Some models are gated to a paid plan, and the roster changes often enough that any specific list goes stale.

Access is not identical everywhere. Model availability depends on your country and VPN status, and a limited mode exists. If your workflow depends on one specific frontier model, confirm it is available to you before you cancel anything else.

The ads are the trade, and the data policy is part of it. Freebuff's README says prompts and messages may be analyzed to personalize ads, and the model picker flags per-model practices, including one model that retains prompts and another that may use data for training. For private code, pick models without those notes.

One more limit: the CLI is an interactive terminal UI. There is no headless or CI mode, so this is a driver's-seat tool, not a pipeline component.

Frequently Asked Questions

Is Freebuff actually free, or is there a catch?

The funding is advertising. Text ads show up in the app while the agent works, and they pay for the model access too. There is no subscription and no credit card on file. The constraint is a daily allowance of 100 Freebucks, not a payment.

Do I need my own API key or a local model setup?

No. Freebuff connects to models over the internet the same way Cursor, Claude Code, and OpenCode do. The agent runs on your machine and the models run in the cloud, so there is nothing to self-host and no provider account to create.

How does the pricing compare to Cursor?

On the comparison Freebuff publishes on its homepage, Cursor lists at $720 per year and Freebuff at $0. Vendor pricing changes often, so treat those figures as a snapshot. The gap is the pitch: ad funding instead of a subscription.

Will it work with my existing project setup?

Mostly, yes. The CLI reads AGENTS.md or CLAUDE.md from the project root, loads MCP servers from .agents/mcp.json in the standard format, and lists skills from .agents/skills and .claude/skills. Chats stay on your machine per project, and freebuff --continue reopens one.

Conclusion

Test it before your next renewal. Install the CLI, hand it a bug you would normally send to a paid agent, and see whether the output holds up. If it covers your daily workload, the $720 a year in Cursor's comparison row stays in your pocket, and the cost of finding out is a few text ads.

Start at the Freebuff homepage, or go straight to the CLI or Desktop page and run it on real work this week.