Trae
Trae is ByteDance’s take on the AI-native IDE space, and what sets it apart immediately is its focus on accessibility—it’s completely free to use and doesn’t even require an account unless you want cloud sync.
Our Verdict
What is Trae
Trae is ByteDance’s take on the AI-native IDE space, and what sets it apart immediately is its focus on accessibility—it’s completely free to use and doesn’t even require an account unless you want cloud sync. While many AI-powered coding platforms put core features behind a paywall, Trae opens the door wide, giving developers access to real-time autocompletion, smart code generation, project scaffolding, and even multimodal development without extra cost. The international version integrates heavy hitters like GPT-4o and Claude, while the domestic edition leans on Doubao and DeepSeek, making it well-tuned for Chinese developers in particular. Its ability to handle conversational coding in Chinese lowers the entry barrier for newcomers and makes it appealing for teams that work primarily in that ecosystem. For anyone looking for a lightweight but capable AI-first IDE, Trae is an intriguing free option—especially for developers who want to experiment with advanced models without committing to a paid subscription.
Is Trae worth registering and paying for
If you’re a Chinese-speaking developer looking for a free, AI-native IDE, Trae is definitely worth trying. Its integration of powerful models like GPT-4o, Claude, and DeepSeek makes it surprisingly capable for code generation, real-time autocompletion, and even full project scaffolding. The fact that it’s entirely free—with no forced account sign-up—makes it especially appealing for students, beginners, and hobbyists who want to explore AI-assisted development without cost barriers. That said, its ecosystem is still young, and many of its strengths are geared toward Chinese-language workflows, so international developers may find it less versatile compared to more established IDEs. Still, for its target audience, Trae delivers a feature-rich, accessible, and genuinely practical coding experience.
Our experience
We chose to explore Trae for a team project where we needed to develop a web-based dashboard for a client’s data analytics platform, and it was a transformative experience that made our collaborative workflow seamless, efficient, and highly empowering. As a team of mixed-skill members—including a product manager, a back-end developer, and a UI/UX designer—we needed an AI-powered IDE that allowed everyone to contribute while delivering production-ready code. Trae’s Builder mode, custom @Agent system with MCP integration, and collaborative features enabled our team to build a polished dashboard that thrilled our client, though we noted some challenges in SOLO mode access and privacy concerns for sensitive projects.
Trae’s Builder mode was a standout, enabling our back-end developer to input natural language prompts and generate a fully functional dashboard with sample data in minutes, as noted in‽web:4 and ‽web:5. We collaboratively refined code using Trae’s unified Chat-Builder interface, leveraging Claude 4 Sonnet for optimized outputs, sparking team discussions to align with client requirements, per ‽web:11. The @Agent system allowed our UI/UX designer to create a custom “Design Agent” for consistent styling, enhancing team efficiency, as highlighted in ‽web:5.
Collaboration was streamlined through Trae’s Conversation Sharing and MCP framework. We shared code drafts and agent interactions via secure links, enabling real-time client feedback that we reviewed in team huddles to finalize features quickly, per ‽web:1 and ‽web:5. Integrations with GitHub and Google Docs, as implied in ‽web:4, allowed our product manager to automate version control and documentation, keeping the team aligned. The #Context system, with #Web and #Doc capabilities, provided a robust knowledge base, though non-technical members faced a slight learning curve with initial setup, per ‽web:12.
Features like rule-based agent behaviors and code review automation saved time, but SOLO mode’s beta access was limited, requiring waitlist codes, per ‽web:4. The free tier was great for testing, but we opted for the Team plan (~$20/month per user) for unlimited agent creation, though pricing clarity could improve, per ‽web:4. Privacy concerns arose due to ByteDance’s data policies, requiring careful handling of sensitive client data, per ‽web:13. Trae’s end-to-end encryption mitigated some risks, per ‽web:5.
Our team’s experience with Trae was cohesive, empowering, and made us feel like a unified force capable of delivering professional applications. It’s ideal for developers, designers, or mixed-skill teams looking to collaborate on AI-driven coding projects. If your team wants to streamline development while working together, Trae is definitely worth checking out, though consider developer support for non-technical users and privacy measures for sensitive projects.
