2024 Unwrapped: The Year of AI Developer Tools
AI tools for developers took massive strides in 2024, reshaping workflows, automating repetitive tasks, and making developers more efficient. As we step into 2025, here’s a look back at the most notable tools and trends in AI-powered development.
Recommended AI Developer Tools
Cursor: The best overall tool with a comprehensive feature set and significant funding, ensuring continued releases and robust support.
Windsurf: Excels in agentic workflows, delivering exceptional capabilities and results. While it still lags behind Cursor in terms of a complete feature set, it showcases promising advancements.
When it comes to AI development tools, fully AI-integrated IDEs deliver superior and more predictable results compared to combining multiple free tools. Integrated solutions ensure all features utilize the same context, creating a cohesive experience that delivers predictable value.
Avoid fully hosted "do-it-all" tools, such as Devin. While these tools offer a glimpse into the future, they currently don’t deliver as much value as AI-integrated IDEs. They limit your ability to tweak and optimize workflows for better results. Instead, prioritize tools that provide flexibility and seamless integration into your existing processes.
Recommended Models for Development Use
OpenAI GPT-4o: A solid, versatile model suitable for most tasks.
Anthropic Claude 3.5 (latest): Delivers the best results and robust performance across scenarios, rivaling o1 in reasoning capabilities.
OpenAI o1: Interesting solution for planning, particularly in chat-driven scenarios. However, it can be slower than Claude, making it less suited for rapid code iteration.
Honorable Mentions
Vercel v0: A standout tool for iterating UI code, offering an excellent workflow and integration of the generated code to your project.
Bolt.new: Despite being a fully hosted tool, its also self-hostable and forkable, allowing for open-source solutions for potential new approaches to development work.
Of course, these are not definitive solutions but rather broad recommendations. Each tool has its own strengths and weaknesses, and the final choice will depend on factors such as languages, processes, tools, and goals.
If you’re interested in delivering more in 2025 with the already existing development team, consider my AI developer tools training, 10x Developer. One day training that allows teams gain hours in their workweek, and make developers happier already in the next day.
