Trae: A New Free AI-Powered Code Editor from ByteDance

Trae stands for “The Real AI Engineer,” and it aims to be more than just an AI helper. Built on the familiar VS Code foundation, Trae feels both familiar and comfortable. Its interface has been redesigned for a smoother experience, and it brings together powerful AI tools that help developers write, edit, and understand code more efficiently.

It’s built to act like a teammate who not only knows how to code but also understands your project. Whether you’re writing Python, JavaScript, or something else, Trae is designed to speed up your workflow and reduce repetitive tasks.

Trae’s Builder Mode reflects a thoughtful, planning-first design similar to test-time scaling strategies like LLM-as-a-Selector, aiming for higher accuracy on the first attempt. While tools like LLM-as-a-Selector peak with moderate sampling sizes, Trae balances performance and precision by breaking tasks into clear steps before applying code changes. This methodical approach may lead to slower completions but often results in more reliable outputs, especially valuable for complex or multi-file edits.

One of the highlights of Trae is its code completion. It doesn’t just guess the next word—you can write a comment about what you want, and Trae will try to generate the full code for you. This is especially useful when you need to build functions quickly or automate common patterns.

Trae also includes a smart feature called Builder Mode. Before making any project-wide changes, it first reads and understands your request, breaks it into steps, and shows a live preview of what it will change. This helps avoid errors and keeps you in control. It also introduces a customizable agent system that adapts to your workflow and supports MCP, enabling tool integrations like connecting with Figma for UI-aware development.

When you need help, you can talk to Trae using its chat interface. There are two chat modes: one for general questions and one built into the code editor for quick fixes and explanations. You can even upload screenshots or terminal outputs to give it more context.

Notably, Trae allows you to use Claude 3.5 Sonnet or even Claude 3.7 on the free tier, giving developers access to cutting-edge models without any cost.

Trae also supports terminal suggestions. Just ask for a command in the chat, and it gives you the option to either paste or directly run it. While it’s not as deeply tied into the terminal as Cursor, it still provides useful support when working with command-line tools.

Perhaps the biggest advantage right now is the price. Trae is completely free while it’s still in early access. All features, including Builder Mode, multimodal chat, and code generation, are available without any cost. This makes it a great option for developers who want to try AI tools without committing to a paid plan.

In short, Trae is a promising new AI IDE that combines intelligent features with a clean interface, and it won’t cost you a thing to give it a try.

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