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TL;DR: Compare agentic IDEs/CLIs by their free access to frontier models. Local models = unlimited free use, Gemini CLI = 3000 h/month, others have various limits.

This list compares agentic coding systems (IDE and CLI) by how many hours of free access they provide to frontier models. Only agentic tools included.

Running open-weight frontier models locally provides unlimited coding assistance without API costs or usage limits. The best tools for local deployment include Cline (VS Code extension with Plan/Act modes and MCP support), Aider (command-line assistant with built-in Git integration), and Continue (open-source VS Code extension supporting 200+ models). All work seamlessly with Ollama to run frontier models like Qwen3-Coder, DeepSeek Coder V2, Codestral, and GLM-4.5.

Note: Frontier models require GPUs with substantial RAM/VRAM. See Simon Willison's article on running GLM-4.5 AIR on his laptop to build Space Invaders for a practical example.

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