While conventional coding tools are helpful, AI developer tools are supercharging the process.
But how do you choose between these upcoming cutting-edge tools?
In this article, we’ll break down the best AI developer tools breaking into the market. We’ll explain their features and explore the pros and cons to see which provide the most value to accelerate development.
The 12 best AI tools for developers
- Motion - Best task organizer for developers
- GitHub CoPilot - Best code completion for GitHub users
- Codeium - Best free code suggestion
- Kombai - Best design-to-code for email and websites
- Visual CoPilot - Best design-to-code for Figma users
- Sourcery - Best AI code reviewer for GitHub repositories
- Bito’s AI Code Reviewer - Best customizable code reviewer
- CodiumAI - Best unit test generator
- Meticulous AI - Best automated end-to-end testing
- bloop - Best natural language search for repositories
- Quod.ai - Best free code search engine
- Codex Atlas - Best automated document generator
Top 12 AI tools to boost developer efficiency
AI developer tools can boost your efficiency as you work on software projects.
Here are a few of the best AI tools to help you deliver projects faster without compromising quality.
Development task organization tools
1. Motion - Best task organizer for developers
Motion is the ideal task manager for busy developers who juggle multiple projects at once. By acting as an AI executive assistant, it automatically organizes your tasks to optimize your schedule, integrating all your calendars into one place.
Motion’s powerful AI algorithms not only organize your tasks according to urgency and availability. They also automatically reshuffle your schedule to accommodate changes while making sure you can still fit everything in and avoid becoming overwhelmed.
With Motion, prioritization becomes a breeze. You know exactly what to work on and when, so everything gets done without a last-minute rush.
How Motion benefits developers: Developers often work on lots of tasks at once. Not only is it tough to prioritize tasks, but the manual admin of organizing and reorganizing your to-do list eats into development time. Motion does this for you, freeing up your time so that you can focus on your core work.
Key features:
- AI-powered task manager
- Intelligent calendar
- Meeting assistant
- Automated notifications and over-commitment alerts
- In-card commenting and tagging
Pros:
- Real-time adjustments in a continuously optimized schedule
- Centralized schedule with all personal and work tasks in one place
- Over-commitment alerts that help prevent burnout
- Automated notifications and updates that keep you in the loop with changes
Con:
- More effective for small to medium-sized teams than large enterprises
Pricing: Motion costs $12 per month per team member and $19 per month for individual users.
Code completion and suggestion tools
2. GitHub Copilot - Best code completion for GitHub users
GitHub Copilot is the world's most widely adopted AI developer tool, focused on accelerating software development.
This tool integrates seamlessly with GitHub, offering real-time code suggestions to speed up coding as you work. It’s especially good for cutting down on time writing repetitive code as well as helping you to devise complex snippets.
Key features:
- AI-powered code completion
- Intelligent code suggestions
- Easy-to-use interface
- Input processing
- Detailed documentation
Pros
- Speeds up coding by up to 55%
- Improves code consistency
- Strong privacy commitments
Cons:
- Can get in the way of freehand coding
- Incorrectly interprets contexts at times
Pricing: Plans start at $10 per month for individuals.
3. Codeium - Best free code suggestion
Codeium is a free tool that can deliver multiple, rapid, real-time code suggestions within a wide range of integrated development environments (IDEs).
Not only does Codeium have autocomplete functionalities, but it also offers code generation to help developers swiftly produce blocks of code. Plus, there’s an AI chatbot to answer queries about coding.
Codeium is the only AI code generator with in-line FIM. This means it can understand the contextuality of code blocks and automatically insert code suggestions into the middle of the code where they belong.
Key features:
- AI-driven code suggestions
- AI-powered coding assistant
- Extensive IDE compatibility
- In-line FIM
- Multilingual support
Pros:
- Saves time by completing code blocks and suggesting snippets
- Free for individual users
- Offers multiple suggestions at once
Cons:
- New coders may find it hard to choose between multiple suggestions
- Sometimes offers incorrect suggestions
Pricing: This tool is free for individual developers. Paid packages for teams start at $12 per month per user.
Design-to-code conversion tools
4. Kombai - Best design-to-code for email and websites
Kombai converts email and web designs into clean, functional HTML, CSS, or React code.
It simplifies front-end development by automating the conversion of design files into ready-to-use code.
The tool uses designs as they are, meaning there’s no need for tagging, naming, or grouping elements. This enables developers to focus on more complex coding rather than simple UI coding tasks.
Key features:
- Automatic code generation
- Auto-recognition of functional components
- No tagging required
- High-quality JS code with loops and conditions
- Library of email templates
Pros:
- Streamlines front-end development
- Intuitive interface
- Accessible to all levels of developer
Cons:
- Some users report issues with font style conversion
- Code heavily depends on the clarity and precision of the input designs
Pricing: Kombai offers a generous free plan, with paid packages starting at $40 per month.
5. Visual Copilot by Builder.io - Best design-to-code for Figma users
Visual Copilot streamlines the design-to-code workflow for Figma users.
It automates the conversion of Figma designs into clean, maintainable code, for faster development with high code standards.
Visual Copilot comes as part of Builder.io’s visual development and CMS platform, empowering your teams to develop, edit, and test on one platform, while also managing content in the same place.
Key features:
- Automated code generation from Figma designs
- Flexible support for multiple frameworks, including React, Vue, Svelte, and Angular
- Easy-to-use editor
- Integrated CMS features
- Enterprise-grade security and compliance
Pros:
- 50-80% reduction in development timelines
- Can train AI to adhere to specific coding standards and preferences
- Capable of importing and utilizing existing code components for faster development
Cons:
- Steep learning curve
- Editor can be slow to load
Pricing: Builder.io offers a free package, with paid plans starting at $19 a month.
Code review tools
6. Sourcery - Best AI code reviewer for GitHub repositories
Sourcery is an AI code reviewer that scrutinizes every pull request for quality and security risks.
It reviews code and provides in-line comments, general feedback, and relevant suggestions on every pull request to speed up your code review process and improve your overall code quality.
This tool can also automatically refactor code to make it cleaner and more readable.
Key features:
- Instant GitHub pull request reviews
- Bug and security risk detection
- Complexity management to reduce unnecessary code complexity
- Popular IDE integrations
- Coding chat assistant
Pros:
- Accelerates development while improving quality
- Flexible and easy to integrate
- Free features for open-source projects
Cons:
- Sometimes oversimplifies code, according to some users
- Takes time to understand how to implement suggestions
Pricing: Sourcery is free for open-source projects. Individual plans start at $10 per month
7. Bito’s AI Code Review Agent - Best customizable code reviewer
Bito is an AI platform that helps you generate and explain code, create test cases, and check performance. Its built-in AI Code Review Agent uses the latest generative AI models to conduct in-depth, human-like code reviews.
It’s excellent at pinpointing issues like errors, code smells, and security vulnerabilities in pull/merge requests across multiple repositories.
Its advanced code understanding and customizable agents allow developers to create bespoke tools that understand unique organizational code patterns and adapt to business-specific needs.
Key features:
- Deep code understanding
- AI-generated pull request summaries
- Real-time feedback on code efficiency and accuracy
- Automated code suggestions and fixes
- Integrated security and performance checks
Pros:
- Reduces code review times by up to 50%
- Provides real-time suggestions and corrections as developers code
- Customizable agents meet specific organizational needs
Cons:
- There’s a lot of features to understand at the beginning
- It’s not easy to copy and paste code
Pricing: While Bito offers a free package, you need to subscribe to the paid package to access the AI Code Review Agent. This costs $15 a month.
Debugging and testing tools
8. CodiumAI - Best unit test generator
CodiumAI generates meaningful tests that help developers check that your code behaves how it’s designed.
Integrating seamlessly with popular IDEs, like VS Code and JetBrains, CodiumAI also offers real-time suggestions to enhance code quality based on these tests.
To help improve the tool’s responses, you can edit the tests it generates and perfect them for your specific projects.
Key features:
- Meaningful AI-powered test generation
- AI-driven code analysis
- Code improvement suggestions
- PR-Agent to review pull requests
- Cover-Agent to boost test coverage
Pros:
- Generates highly contextual use cases
- Has editable tests
- Supports multiple programming languages
Cons:
- Difficult to test whole files
- Sometimes generates too many test suggestions at once
Pricing: CodiumAI is free for individual developers. Paid packages start at $19 per user per month.
9. Meticulous AI - Best automated end-to-end testing tool
Meticulous AI is an end-to-end testing tool that automatically creates and maintains test suites from recorded user sessions.
This tool dynamically updates tests in response to new features or edge cases. It also removes outdated tests to make sure your suite remains relevant and comprehensive. This improves the reliability of software releases with no need for developer intervention.
Key features:
- Automated test generation
- Deterministic scheduling engine to eliminate test flakiness
- Automatic test updates for zero maintenance
- Behavioral, logical, and visual change detection
- Integration with CI/CD pipelines for real-time feedback on pull requests
Pros:
- Capable of handling complex applications and a high volume of screens
- Captures thousands of edge cases without writing a single test line
- Tests deliver results in under 20 seconds for extensive coverage
Cons:
- Setup can be complex
- Limited support for mobile testing
Pricing: Meticulous AI offers a free demo and custom pricing.
Code search tools
10. bloop - Best for natural language search for repositories
bloop is an AI-powered tool that helps teams interact with legacy codebases.
It specializes in navigating legacy code and modernizing it so that it’s readable, maintainable, and free from licensing restrictions.
One of bloop’s most popular features is its integration of natural language processing for code queries. It can handle multiple repositories at once, making it an ideal search tool for extensive and complex legacy systems.
Key features:
- Natural language codebase search
- Multi-repo search
- Code search in over 10 languages
- Regex matching
- AI-powered legacy code conversion
Pros:
- Faster and easier to find and utilize code across various repositories
- Compatible with major coding languages and platforms
- Helps modernize legacy code
Cons:
- Auto-show features can clutter the interface
- Overreliance can lead to a limited understanding of code changes
Pricing: bloop offers custom pricing based on company size and needs.
11. Quod.ai - Best free code search engine
Quod AI is an advanced code search engine designed to help developers navigate large codebases across multiple repositories.
The free tool allows you to quickly find, understand, and integrate complex code snippets.
With AI-generated summaries and metadata, developers use this tool to accelerate their understanding of repositories to get a better idea of what’s happening across multiple respositories at once.
Key features:
- Comprehensive cross-repository code search
- Semantic search capabilities
- Search auto-complete and related searches
- AI-enhanced docstrings
- AI-generated summaries and metadata
Pros:
- Faster onboarding for new developers
- Intuitive search interface
- Integrates with popular development tools and platforms like VSCode, GitHub, and Jira
Cons:
- Only designed for individual developer use
- Only supports two languages
Pricing: Quod.ai is free.
Developer documentation tools
12. Codex Atlas - Best automated documentation generator
Codex Atlas automates the creation and maintenance of software documentation. It ensures that all documentation is always synchronized with the latest code changes to keep it up-to-date.
It doesn’t just produce written documentation. Codex Atlas can also detect use cases from your code and generate video tutorials on how they work.
This tool also offers a free code conversion tool to convert code from one language to another.
Key features:
- Automatic README generation
- Real-time documentation updates
- Video tutorial generation
- Free code conversion tool
- On-premise solution available
Pros:
- Saves developers up to 20% of their time
- Video tutorials simplify new-hire onboarding
- Works seamlessly with various development environments
Cons:
- Expensive
- Limited customizable branding on documentation
Pricing: A free trial is available. Company plans start at $400 per month.
Optimize development with AI
AI tools help developers improve accuracy and speed up development by helping you code, test, debug, and search.
While traditional tools are helpful in performing these jobs, none are as fast or precise as machine learning algorithms.
Remember, though, you’re only as fast as your schedule allows. If you’re not managing your tasks well, the manual admin of organizing your time will significantly slow down development.
Leave it to Motion instead.
Try Motion for free today to see for yourself just how much an optimized schedule can accelerate your productivity.
