Trae

ByteDance's AI-native IDE that fuses agent and editor into one workflow

0Code & DevelopmentFreemium

Editorial Review

Trae is ByteDance's serious bid for the AI-IDE category dominated by Cursor and Windsurf. The product is genuinely well-built — fast, polished UI, good multi-model orchestration, and a Builder/Chat mode split that maps cleanly to how engineers actually work. A generous free tier with paid Lite/Pro/Ultra options ($3/$10/$100) for higher usage is the headline differentiator. The trade-offs are the usual ones for ByteDance products in 2026: Chinese ownership matters for some buyers (data sovereignty, geopolitical considerations), and the product roadmap is less transparent than US-headquartered alternatives. For solo developers and small teams who want a serious AI IDE without a $20/mo subscription, Trae is genuinely competitive — and the multi-model support (you're not locked to one provider) is a real benefit Cursor doesn't offer at the same price point.

Key Features

AI-native IDE (not a chat-extension bolt-on)Builder mode (autonomous) and Chat mode (granular)Multi-model support (Claude, GPT, Gemini, DeepSeek)

About Trae

Trae is ByteDance's AI-native IDE, designed from the ground up around an embedded coding agent rather than a chat sidecar. It supports both an autonomous Builder mode and a granular Chat mode, with first-class support for frontier models including Claude, GPT, Gemini, and DeepSeek. Free tier with caps; paid tiers (Lite $3/mo, Pro $10/mo, Ultra $100/mo) for higher usage.