2024’s Top 12 CodeGen Tools
Generative AI Code generation (codegen) tools have emerged as indispensable allies for developers, automating repetitive tasks, ensuring consistency, and significantly reducing the time to market for new applications.
These tools can generate boilerplate code, scaffold entire applications, or even produce complex code structures on the fly, allowing developers to focus on solving unique business challenges.
Let’s take a look at the top 12 code generation tools that stand out so far. Our selection is based on ease of use, feature set, popularity among developers, and the support of an active community. Whether you're a seasoned developer or just starting out, understanding the capabilities of these tools can transform your approach to coding and project development.
A quick note about different types of CodeGen tools, we believe that there are 6 levels of codegen automation. Those levels fall into two very specific categories; you are coding and must constantly supervise (“coding assistance”) and you are not coding and only need to take over when requested (“autonomous coding”).
While we recommend reading our article on the 6 levels of code generation, for the purposes of this article we’re going to bucket each of these tools into one of those 2 categories.
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Amazon CodeWhisperer
Launch date: April 2023
Category: Coding assistance
Use case: General coding
Level of autonomy: Level 2
What is it?
This is Amazon’s rendition of GitHub Copilot.
Amazon CodeWhisperer, developed by AWS, is a machine learning-powered service designed to improve developer productivity by providing code recommendations. It supports multiple programming languages and integrates seamlessly with popular IDEs.
CodeWhisperer excels in generating code snippets, answering code questions, and offering security recommendations. It's particularly useful for AWS cloud development, as it understands AWS services and best practices.
Cons
- Tailored for AWS development, offering insights into AWS services and best practices.
- Integrates with popular IDEs, enhancing workflow without needing to switch environments.
- Provides security recommendations and code suggestions along with a code Q&A feature.
- Mainly beneficial for developers working within the AWS ecosystem.
- Might require adjustments or manual review to ensure generated code meets specific project requirements.
Pros
GitHub Copilot
Launch date: June 2022
Category: Coding assistance
Use case: General coding
Level of autonomy: Level 2
What is it?
We’ve got to start the list with coding’s sweetheart, GitHub Copilot. Effectively, it’s autocomplete for code with a chat feature in your IDE. Copilot is versatile, supporting a wide array of programming languages and frameworks, and is particularly adept at boilerplate code, tests, and even complex algorithms.
Cons
- Provides context-aware code suggestions directly in the IDE, speeding up the development process.
- Supports a broad array of languages and frameworks.
- Helps learn new coding patterns and practices.
- Generated code often requires careful review to ensure it aligns with best practices and project standards.
- Subscription-based model, which might be a barrier for individual developers or small teams.
Pros
Stride Conductor
Launch date: November 2023
Category: Autonomous coding
Use case: Modernization, Tech Debt, Migration, PR Review, General Coding
Level of autonomy: Level 3
What is it?
Stride Conductor is a great way to empower delivery teams and increase capacity -- if you're just looking for a coding assistant, this isn't the tool for you.
Unlike existing products that help individuals write code faster, Stride Conductor's multi-agent framework acts as a full engineering team that is customized to work within existing workflows and environments, and is able to tackle tedious tasks and technical debt to free up human teams to do high value work. According to our customers, Stride Conductor is uniquely able to add capacity to their teams, much more so than coding assistants.
Conductor is built to have humans in the loop, but is capable of refining tickets, writing code and committing PRs all on its own - and works from a mixture of technical and non-technical prompts, essentially whatever you have in your backlog.
Stride Conductor also inherits from the deep software experience of Stride, a software consulting company who has built highly performant software for everything from Fortune 50s to startup companies. Stride is a champion for Agile methodologies, TDD (Test Driven Development) and XP (Extreme Programming) — these practices are encoded into Conductor and have been shown to improve code quality and customer satisfaction.
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Cons
- Entirely customizable to your environment and tech stack
- Helps tackle big jobs like reducing tech debt or code modernization with ease
- Creates a visible record of agent communications for team review and learning
- Requires custom set up for your environment, not something you can sign up for and set up out of the box
- Subscription-based model, which might be a barrier for individual developers or small teams.
Pros
Devin
Launch date: March 2024
Category: Autonomous coding
Use case: General Coding
Level of autonomy: Level 3
What is it?
Devin has recently exploded on the GenAI scene and has a lot of buzz. Their capabilities include reasoning, planning, utilizing common developer tools, and actively collaborating with users on complex engineering tasks. It can autonomously find and fix bugs, learn new technologies, build and deploy applications, and even train AI models.
Evaluated on a challenging coding benchmark, Devin significantly outperformed previous models in resolving real-world GitHub issues.
Cons
- Excels in reasoning and planning, handling complex tasks that involve many decisions.
- Offers real-time progress updates, accepts feedback, and collaborates on design choices.
- Capable of learning new technologies, finding and fixing bugs, and building and deploying apps independently.
- Devin controls the environment, rather than working in yours.
- Currently in early access, which may limit availability or reveal developmental imperfections.
- Still requires human driving
- Effectiveness might vary across more challenging coding environments or project requirements.
Pros
Grit
Launch date: August 2023
Category: Autonomous coding
Use case: Code migration
Level of autonomy: Level 3
What is it?
Software maintenance tool powered with a code search engine.
Grit is a lesser-known but rapidly gaining attention tool focused on automating code migrations and dependency upgrades. Grit is designed to helping teams maintain existing codebases by upgrading to modern languages or automatically updating packages. It allows users to automate through a CLI or a web platform.
Cons
- Automates code migrations and package updates, saving time and reducing errors.
- Supports upgrading to modern languages for improved performance and security.
- Offers CLI and web platform options, providing flexibility for different workflows.
- Initial learning curve and integration effort required for effective use.
- Potential for automation to overlook specific customization or compatibility needs in complex projects.
Pros
Tusk
Founded: November 2023
Category: Coding assistance
Use case: Front end support
Level of autonomy: Level 2
What is it?
A tool for Product Managers or non-technical users to make minor UI and copy changes so they don’t have to bug their developers
Tusk is an innovative code generation tool designed to enhance productivity by offering context-aware coding suggestions and automated code refactoring. It integrates with popular IDEs, making it easily accessible for developers working on complex codebases. Tusk stands out for its focus on understanding the intent behind code changes, allowing it to suggest more accurate and useful improvements. Tusk is great for dev teams looking to maintain code quality and consistency.
Cons
- Fairly thorough code changes
- Integrates with popular tools like GitHub, JIRA, Linear, and Notion
- Focuses on small changes that developers may not enjoy tackling
- Running Tusk may take hours and has parity with traditional software development
- Web app does not provide enough easy visibility in the process creating confusion of progress
Pros
Tabnine
Launched: ~2018
Category: Coding support
Use case: General coding
Level of autonomy: Level 2
What is it?
Originally founded in 2012 as Codota, Tabnine has spun out as an AI-powered code completion tool that aims to enhance developer productivity by providing accurate and context-aware code suggestions across a wide range of programming languages and development environments.
It utilizes machine learning models trained on a vast corpus of code to predict and suggest the next snippets of code a developer might need, effectively reducing the amount of typing required and speeding up the development process.
Cons
- Provides accurate code completions by understanding the code context.
- Works with many programming languages and IDEs.
- Emphasis on security
- Offers hosting on-premises or virtual private cloud (VPC)
- Useful features require a paid subscription
- Can be demanding on system resources
- Requires time to learn and adjust settings for optimal use
Pros
Fine
Launch date: May 2023
Category: Autonomous coding
Use case: General Coding
Level of autonomy: Level 3
What is it?
Fine is a platform offering AI-driven software development agents designed to automate backlog tickets.
They use individual AI-agents to automate mundane and complex tasks alike, enhancing efficiency by handling tedious development tasks, from transforming Jira tickets into pull requests to maintaining code integrity and facilitating faster pull request resolutions.
Cons
- Automates repetitive and complex development tasks
- Very usable UI that allows users to run and edit code
- Useful features require a paid subscription
- Potential learning curve for integration into existing team workflows
- Requires adjustments for highly specialized projects
Pros
Second
Launch: July 2023
Category: Autonomous coding
Use case: Code migration
Level of autonomy: Level 3
What is it?
Code migration platform.
Second offers a unique approach to code generation by focusing on the developer experience and collaboration. It aims to reduce the time developers spend on translating one language to another. They support a range of programming languages and frameworks, making it versatile for various development projects. Second’s web platform is easy to work with and has an asynchronous user experience.
Cons
- Existing frameworks to migrate code from one language to another
- Easy onboarding to integrate with GitHub
- Ability to handle multiple workspaces and users
- As a relatively new entrant, it may lack the extensive documentation and community support of more established tools.
- Code is passed through Second's servers and may be deter security-minded teams
Pros
Jetbrains AI
Launch date: June 2023
Category: Coding assistance
Use case: General coding
Level of autonomy: Level 2
What is it?
This is Jetbrains version of GitHub Copilot.
JetBrains AI brings the power of artificial intelligence to the JetBrains suite of development tools. It provides intelligent code completion, refactoring suggestions, and code analysis, making it a comprehensive solution for improving coding efficiency.
JetBrains is particularly useful for developers already using JetBrains products, as it integrates seamlessly into their existing workflows.
Cons
- Offers intelligent code completion, refactoring suggestions, and code analysis within the JetBrains suite.
- Enhances productivity and code quality for users of JetBrains products.
- Leverages AI to provide advanced insights and suggestions.
- Primarily beneficial for developers already using JetBrains IDEs.
- The full utility of the tool is dependent on the integration with other JetBrains products, which may limit its appeal to users of other development environments.
Pros
Cursor
Launch date: March 2023
Category: Coding assistance
Use case: General coding
Level of autonomy: Level 2
What is it?
Cursor is a VS Code fork with an embedded AI code assistant.
Built by the team at Anysphere, Cursor is an AI-powered coding assistant that helps developers write better code faster. It offers real-time code suggestions, documentation lookup, and error resolution within the IDE. Cursor's strength lies in its adaptability to the developer's coding style and project context, providing personalized recommendations.
Cursor is built well for individual developers and teams interested in optimizing their coding practices.
Cons
- Provides real-time code suggestions, documentation lookup, and error resolution within the IDE.
- Customizable LLM configuration.
- High performance for finding context in a codebase
- Ability to add framework documentation into context
- Focus on real-time assistance might not cover broader aspects of project planning and architecture.
- Might require connectivity and resource overhead, impacting IDE performance for some users.
Pros
Codegen
Launch date: December 2023
Category: Autonomous coding
Use case: General coding
Level of autonomy: Level 3
What is it?
Codegen is a platform that automates the creation of code for web, mobile, and API development projects.
It focuses on accelerating the development process by generating high-quality, customizable code from specifications. Codegen supports a wide range of programming languages and frameworks, making it a versatile choice for developers across different technology stacks.
With all that said, we’re skeptical that they have achieved “Level 5” automation as claimed in their footer.
Cons
- Automates the creation of code for a wide range of applications, from web to mobile and APIs.
- Integrates with Jira, Linear, and Github Issues
- Supports a broad spectrum of programming languages and frameworks, offering flexibility.
- Generated code might need adjustments to fit specific project architectures or standards.
- The platform has a lot of promise, but not enough social proof to show efficacy
Pros
It’s still early days for code generation, most of these tools are less than a year old and in their earliest versions. That said, we’re seeing the industry rocketing forward at unreal speed. One thing is clear - it’s not a question of if but when these tools evolve to a level of autonomy that most of us can’t even fully imagine.
The cost of delay for adopting these tools is high.
In most cases you’re going to have a unique case that isn’t going to be solved with an out-of-the-box solution. In fact, that’s what we’re hearing from all of our customers. They’re overwhelmed by all of the tools they need to use to generate the outcomes they want.
That’s where we come in! Stride Conductor is built to accommodate your workflows and your needs. You can tailor Stride Conductor to your specific needs, no matter the size of the project or technologies used.
Sometimes you’ve gotta see it to believe it so set up your demo today!
