Codeium Review 2026: The Best Free AI Code Assistant

What Is Codeium?

Codeium is a free AI code completion tool that works across all major editors. While competitors like Copilot charge $10-20/month and limit free tiers to a few hundred completions, Codeium offers unlimited completions at zero cost for individual developers.

It’s made by the same company behind Windsurf (Codeium’s AI IDE), and serves as their free tier product focused purely on code completion and chat.

Key Features

Unlimited Free Completions

This is Codeium’s killer feature. Unlimited code completions, forever, for free. No token limits, no monthly caps, no credit card required. For developers who just want solid autocomplete without paying, nothing else comes close.

Multi-Editor Support

Codeium works in VS Code, JetBrains, Neovim, Vim, Emacs, Sublime Text, Visual Studio, and Eclipse. The editor coverage is as broad as GitHub Copilot’s, which is impressive for a free tool.

Chat

Codeium includes a chat feature for asking questions about your code, requesting explanations, and generating snippets. It works, but it’s noticeably behind Copilot Chat and Cursor’s chat in terms of quality and context awareness.

Code Search

Search through your codebase using natural language queries. It’s a nice addition that helps you navigate unfamiliar projects.

Pricing

Plan	Price	Key Features
Individual	Free	Unlimited completions, chat, search, 70+ languages
Team	$15/user/mo	Admin controls, usage analytics, SSO

That’s it. No tiered free trial that expires, no “starter” plan with artificial limits. The individual plan is genuinely free and genuinely unlimited.

What Codeium Does Well

The free tier is unbeatable. We scored Codeium 10/10 for value for money — the only tool to receive a perfect score in that dimension. For a $0 tool, the quality of completions is remarkably good.

Completion speed is excellent. Suggestions appear with minimal latency, even on larger files. Codeium’s proprietary model is optimized for speed, and it shows.

Editor coverage is broad. Whatever editor you use, Codeium probably supports it. The extensions are well-maintained and regularly updated.

Where Codeium Falls Short

No agentic features. Codeium can’t edit multiple files, plan changes, or act autonomously. It’s an autocomplete and chat tool — nothing more. If you need agentic capabilities, you need Cursor, Claude Code, or Windsurf.

Chat is mediocre. Codeium’s chat works for basic questions, but the answers often lack the depth and accuracy you get from GPT-4o or Claude-powered tools. It’s fine for quick lookups, but don’t rely on it for complex reasoning.

You get what you pay for. Free means no premium models, no advanced features, and a team plan that’s priced similarly to Copilot. The individual free tier is great, but the feature gap to paid tools is real.

Codeium vs. the Competition

Codeium vs. GitHub Copilot: Copilot is better in quality, chat, and features — but it costs $10/month. If that $10 matters (students, hobby developers, early-career developers), Codeium is a solid alternative. For professionals, Copilot is worth the upgrade.

Codeium vs. Cursor: Not really competitors. Cursor is an AI IDE with agentic capabilities. Codeium is a code completion extension. Use Codeium if you want free autocomplete in your existing editor; use Cursor if you want the full AI IDE experience.

Codeium vs. Tabnine: Both offer free tiers, but Codeium’s is more generous. Tabnine’s advantage is privacy (local models, on-premise deployment). For most developers, Codeium’s free tier is better.

Who Should Use Codeium?

Codeium is best for:

• Students and learners who can’t justify a subscription
• Hobby developers who want AI assistance without cost
• Developers evaluating AI tools before committing to a paid plan
• Teams that want to pilot AI coding tools with zero budget

Codeium is not ideal for:

• Developers who need agentic multi-file editing (use Cursor or Claude Code)
• Professional teams that need enterprise features and support
• Anyone who needs the best possible AI chat quality

The Verdict

Codeium earns our Best Free Option badge. It’s the best AI coding tool you can use without paying a cent, period. The completions are fast, the language support is broad, and the editor coverage is excellent.

Is it as good as Copilot or Cursor? No. But for free, it’s remarkably good — and for many developers, “good enough for free” is exactly what they need.

---

This review is based on Codeium as of February 2026. Features and pricing may change.