John Rush Profile picture
Feb 25 37 tweets 14 min read Read on X
I've tried all (36) AI Coding Agents & IDEs 😵‍💫

[CreateXyz, Cursor, Softgen, Windsurf, Wrapifai, Copilot, Lovable, Bolt, v0, Replit, MarsX, AmazonQ, Pear, Devin, Github Spark, IDX, Webdraw, Claude 3.7 Sonnet & more]

The most complete list ever made:
1.
- it can clone a product when you drop the link to it
- has connections to things like the movie db, hackernews and more
- auth with one prompt

Good if you wanna create functiniing products with just a few prompts.

Create.Xyz
2.
- perhaps the best for generating mobile apps from your phone
- also it's mobile-first iteself, basically "generate mobile app from your mobile"
- produces React Native apps (not just web wrappers)
- uses Claude 3.7 Sonnet

a0.dev
3.

It took me 20 minutes to get my app done.
Compared to all other tools I've tried, softgen felt the more autonomous. I didn't have to debug things. It did it all on its own.

Softgen.ai
4.
- best for form based apps(user fills out the form and AI generates the output)
- I use it to build mini tools for SEO or lead magnets
- 100% nocode. Super easy to use. But limited to simple apps

Wrapifai.com
5. Cursor.com
- the best
- works best for coders and not such a good fit for nocoders
- can assist, autocomplete, refactor and even build entire modules/projects
Here its been asked to migrate from Tailwind v3 to v4

x.com/ericzakariasso…
6. @boltdotnew
- started as a side project of stackblitz and went huge raising $105M
- works for everyone(coders, nocoders, marketers...)
- has out of the box integration with supabase for data, auth..

I built several lead magnets using bolt

8. @lovable_dev
- fastest-growing EU based startup today ($10M ARR)
- has native supabase integration
- has the best AI+NoCode mix on the market (the wysiwyg part)
- takes in screenshots as an input and can produce full web apps

9. @windsurf_ai (works well for advanced apps. my top 3)
- acts as a true agent
- offers deepseek
- can use the web search
- has a memory.

10. GitHub Copilot ( the OG of this game, started back in 2020 )
- can generate code
- handles large codebases
- can merge PRs, fix bugs, search code

11. @Replit AI
- most advanced AI Agent for coding imho
- has two modes: Agent or Assistant
- true full stack app generator. Has its own server, db, hosting...

Here is the real app I built using it

seobotai.com/broken-link-ch…
12. v0 from Vercel
- best for making well-designed web pages or UIs
- doesn't work well for fullstack apps
- can use figma as a starting point
- lets you edit elements one by one

13. MarsX (my own product)
- a mix of AI, NoCode and High Code
- I built
@seobotai, @listingbott and @indexrusher using marsx
- it takes the whole coding world to the next level since it isn't a website builder, but "SaaS builder"

14. Devin
(I didnt manage to try this one, but someone else did, so I share their review)
- super expensive
- targets corporate world
- acts as a junior dev in a dev team

15. Webdraw
- best for people with zero coding experience
- totally genius UX
- free
- turns sketches into web apps

16. Tempo Labs
- Generates full-stack apps using a text or image prompt
- It starts by making an architecture and diagrams
- I think they have the best AI Coding UX, wow

17. Trae
- goes all the way from 0 to 1 via prompting

Building a snake game:

18. Cline
- VC code plugin
- works for large codebases
- supports any LLM
- runtime awareness

19. Databutton
- from my friends from Norway
- backed by VCs who backed one of my startups
- has very unique approach, different from most of the players
- works great for true nocoders

20. Continue dot Dev.
- an open source alternative to Cursor
- great for those who wanna build their own AI IDE (like maker from Pear AI who forked it)

Image
21. Base44
- for noncoders
- all in one
- creates dashboard-like apps pretty well

22. Qodo
- for coders
- can write tests, refactor and generate code
- supports all llms(including deepseek)

23. Amazon Q
- very few people use it
- totally lagging behind the top players

24. Caffeine AI
- new player
- too early to say anything. for now just putting them into the list to come back to them later when they launch

25. Aider
- can genereate most of the things out of prompts
- has cool terminal UI
- acts as a pair programmer
- works locally

26. Pear AI
- entered into YC
- had a huge drama around forking a github repo
- had a mentor call with them, two very talented guys taking an alternative path on competing with cursor

27. Github Spark
- works well for small or demo apps
- still behind the "waitlist" for the technical preview

28. IDX
- free alternative to cursor
- can build mobile apps
- uses gemini

29. Tabnine
- mostly works as an advanced AI Autocomplete
- slowly getting into AI code gen

30. Amazon CodeWhisperer
- can generate unit tests
- help with coding

31. Jetbrains
- I'd expect them to be leading this whole AI Cod Gen thing. Back in the day their autocomplete and resharper thing were just so cool. But somehow, they just wasted it all. I hope they catch up.

32. ChatGPT code canvas
- great for nocoders learning tocode

Building windows 95 demo:

33. Grok from Elon and X AI
- can write pretty complex code
- does really well with mini games

2D vertical jumping game. With different heroes, monsters, platforms, difficulties, and lives

34. Haystack - An IDE built on top of a canvas
- really cool and creative idea for UX of a code refactoring with AI
- also does code reviewing

35. Claude 3.7 Sonnet.
- kinda the best coding LLM at the moment

36. Claude Code
can search code, run tests, and push to GitHub.

Claude Code is a CLI tool that lets you delegate engineering tasks to Claude with full access to your codebase, tests, and GitHub - all from your terminal.
That's it.
Let me know if you know more.

Here are some of my own startups:
unicornplatform.com
listingbott.com
seobotai.com Image

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More from @johnrushx

Jun 13
> Traditional SaaS is done (soon)
> commoditized
> founders clone successful products & halve the price
> a race to the bottom, down to $0
> everything is about to look & work the same: the social mediaschedulers, web builders, calendar apps, etc

I think this is what comes next:
AI Agent will dominate the software.

AI Agents will be the only proxy between humans and machines.
Non-AI software will still be necessary, but it'll be used by AI, not humans.

Today, we build software for humans, tomorrow, we'll build for agents.

The Future of UX:
Old UX will be gone and most traditional software will simply expose API for other agents(e.g., MCP servers).

The new UX: chat, canvas, mindmap, AR

Most consumer UX will be AR, e.g. we'll be wearing glasses and AI will augment the interface on top of the real world.

Canvas UX:
Read 7 tweets
Jun 13
Don’t do this until you made $10k with your startup:

> hire > google/fb ads
> redesign > registering a company
> outsourcing > more features
> refactoring > start a new project
> VC funding > events
> dark mode > conferences

Why:
No employees!

> they can perform well-defined tasks, but at the beginning, most tasks need creativity & exploration.
> they don’t care as much as u, they won’t be obsessed with making the product better, listening the users and working their ass off. The customers gonna feel it
No Google/FB ads!

> paid ads can’t magically bring traffic to a product that sucks organically. So first get some organic traction

> if u still go for paid growth, use: influencers or niched networks like @TinyAdz , if you're in b2b tech
Read 9 tweets
Jun 3
My 17 ideation methods 🧵:

(I shipped more than 50 products doing this)
1) Marketplace, where you're the chicken.

To solve chicken & the egg problem, you should be the chicken and your users are the eggs. E.g. in TinyAdz I was the first advertizer, I paid to adevertize my own products, so that publishers could earn money on the day one. So easy.
2) Build a tool for yourself.

If u truly satisfy yourself & become a big fan of your own tool, the chance you won’t find external users is zero.
(I built SeoBot and listingbott this way)
Read 19 tweets
May 29
I've tried all (46 😵‍💫) AI Coding Agents & IDEs

[Factory, Cursor, Heyboss, Windsurf, Emergent, Wrapifai, Copilot, Lovable, Bolt, v0, Replit, MarsX, Canva, Devin, Github Spark, IDX, Stitch & more]

The most complete list ever made (with demos & notes):
1. @FactoryAI

An advanced AI coding tool: generates complex apps, docs, works well with large existing projects, has access to web search, MCPs, can run code on my local machine + UX is 🤌 . best for coders.

I'm building "Inbox agent" using this tool, gonna report back soon
2. @heybossAI

I'd say the most creative AI Coding tool on the market (.
Can build production grade apps, with backend and database.

I'm building my inbox agent here too, so far, I really love the design output.
Works great for non-coders.
Read 48 tweets
May 26
I acquired Unicorn Platform for almost $1M.

Since then, it went from 25k to 551k users.

I've literally tried every growth method I've heard of.
All my marketing failures & successes:

1. Partnerships with incubators.

I contacted all famous startup incubators and signed deals with most to place unicorn as a "perk" there.

I thought it'd become a passive stream of users, but I don't think I got even one paying user out of this. I canceled all these deals.
2. Paid ads.

I wasted lots of cash on google/meta/x/tt/reddit ads. No results at all for my 2-3 fig/mo budgets. Mostly clicks from bots & non relevant countries.

Now i run my ads on using my own TinyAdz. It works well, I plan to spend 5% of my profit on ads from now on.
Read 25 tweets
May 16
This never works:
→ Startup Idea → Plan → Design → Coding → Marketing→ Audience → 😣

This works ( sometimes ):
I launched 20+ startups using the following playbook:

Audience → Problem → Idea → Validation → Waitlist → SEO → One Feature MVP → Iterate → Marketing → Success.

See a full breakdown of each step 🧵 :
1) Audience.

- X, Linkedin, Reddit, DevTo, HackerNoun,
- 3 hours daily.
- Never skip it, just like a gym.

Every idea must start with an audience (unless u r a Steve Jobs level genius).
It'll help you build smth people actually want. Image
Read 12 tweets

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