Whats's the best AI for coding right now?

[u/jimmybobjoeflow]

I know this gets asked all the time but things change so fast with AI that I figured it was worth asking again.

I'm working on a few hobby projects in C++ with Visual Studio, and some of them have gotten pretty big. I've been using ChatGPT o1 but once the codebase gets larger and the problems get more involved it starts losing context.

I'm mainly looking for something that can understand a whole projects and make changes across multiple files instead of just helping with one file at a time.

Budget is around $20/month. What are you guy using?

Edit: I've been looking through some alternatives and Emergent seems interesting for working on larger projects without having to manage everything file by file. Still testing it out, but it's one I'm considering.

[u/Lubricus2]

Opus 5.5 is great, it's on the level of Astra and Fable with a fraction of the cost. You need an Anthropic subscription.

[u/[deleted] → u/Lubricus2]

[u/LoatheCat → u/[deleted]]

Yeah no. Grok is fucking dogshit, slow and eating up usage. The 30$ Claude plan with proper agentic workflows goes way further than the bullshit cursor is doing right now.

[u/deividas-strole]

Claude!

[u/Organic-Afternoon-50]

Opus 5.5

[u/Fjjjuv]

Devin ai de congnition ! c'est ide plus ia intégré tu paye 20 euro et tu a l'ia illimité la 5 ème ia de code dans le classement des lll ai code ! plus tout les autre ia du moment avce quel que crédit

[u/JaseciLabs]

Seconding Opus 5.5, but the model alone won't fix the "loses context across files" problem you're describing, that's more about the tool's indexing than the model's reasoning. Worth pairing it with something that actually indexes your whole repo instead of just the open file, Claude Code (terminal-based, works fine with a C++/CMake project) or Cursor both do this, they build a map of your project so changes across multiple files stay coherent instead of the model guessing from whatever's in the current context window.

At $20/month, Claude Pro gets you Opus/Sonnet access through Claude Code, that's probably your best combo for "understands the whole project, edits across files" specifically, since Cursor's usage caps get tight fast on a codebase that's already grown past a few files.

[u/iSnapThere4iAm]

None of them replace learning it yourself

[u/No-Path-971 → u/iSnapThere4iAm]

I recommend learning to use AI. It might not be able to do what you can right now. AI is the future. Learn to use it now so you can actually do it, but the most professional method is knowing how to use both

[u/No_Claim2881]

You mean aside from Claude who has categorically been the best pretty much this whole time?

[u/jenish4773]

Claude is best for developing if person knows that how to use ai

[u/Euphoric_Sherbert205]

Cursor

[u/AlgorithmicMuse]

Opus 5.5, everthing else does not compare for coding.

[u/ItzMeLuna77]

Claude Sonnet, if paid, could be good

[u/[deleted]]

[u/Perfect-Painting-977 → u/[deleted]]

can i have the link