Choosing Your First Tool
A decision guide: terminal, editor, cloud, or local.
There is no single best tool — there's a best tool for you. Answer these three questions:
- Do you prefer a terminal or an editor?
- Do you want a cloud agent or something you run locally?
- What's your budget and privacy requirement?
The main categories
- Terminal agents — Claude Code, Codex CLI, Gemini CLI, Aider. Fast, scriptable, live in your repo. Best for power users.
- AI editors / IDEs — Cursor, Windsurf, Copilot in VS Code. Best if you want suggestions inline while you type.
- Autonomous cloud agents — Devin, OpenHands, Replit Agent. You hand off a whole task; they work in their own sandbox.
- Local models — Ollama + Llama/Qwen/Hermes. Free, private, but slower and less capable on big tasks.
A quick recommendation
| You are… | Start with | | --- | --- | | A professional developer who loves the terminal | Claude Code or Codex CLI | | A VS Code user who wants gentle help | GitHub Copilot or Cursor | | New to coding and want an app built for you | Cursor or a cloud agent | | Privacy-conscious / offline | Ollama with an open model |
Rule of thumb: pick one tool and use it daily for two weeks before trying others. Depth beats breadth.