Trae Review: Free AI IDE, 4 Plans from $3/mo (2026)

Last updated: 2026-05-29

Trae: free AI IDE by ByteDance with SOLO agent mode and 4 plans from $3/month. Supports Claude 3.7, GPT-4.1, Gemini 2.5 Pro. macOS, Windows, Web, iOS.

Trae is ByteDance's AI IDE with 4 plans: Free, Lite ($3/mo), Pro ($10/mo), Pro+ ($30/mo), and Ultra ($100/mo), launched February 2026. It runs on macOS, Windows, Web, and iOS. SOLO Mode scaffolds complete projects from plain English using Claude 3.7 Sonnet, GPT-4.1, or Gemini 2.5 Pro. Free plan includes 5,000 monthly autocompletions. Not recommended for proprietary codebases due to unavoidable ByteDance telemetry.

About Trae

Trae (The Real AI Engineer) is an AI-first code editor built by ByteDance and released in January 2025. Built on a fork of Visual Studio Code, it ships with GPT-4o, Claude Sonnet 4, DeepSeek R1, and Gemini 2.5 Pro as selectable backends, all accessible free on the base plan with no credit card required. The IDE is targeted at developers outside China and competes directly with Cursor ($20/month) and Windsurf ($15/month) by offering a comparable feature set at $10/month after a $3 introductory month. The headline capability is Builder Mode, an autonomous agent that reads a natural-language project description, breaks it into implementation steps, writes the full file structure including frontend, backend, and config files, and shows a live preview of each change before applying it. This is distinct from standard code completion: Builder Mode scaffolds entire projects in a single session. Trae also supports Model Context Protocol (MCP) with a one-click marketplace for connecting external tools, databases, and APIs directly into the agent context. Trae is best suited for solo developers and early-stage teams building greenfield projects, vibe coders who want to prototype quickly without deep automation setup, and developers already familiar with VS Code who want to retain their extensions and keybindings. On codebases larger than 100,000 lines, Trae's just-in-time context strategy loses track of project structure more frequently than Cursor's full-repo indexing approach. The free plan includes unlimited slow requests and autocomplete. The Pro plan at $10/month (after the $3 first-month promotion) adds 600 fast requests to premium models monthly and removes queue wait times. Both plans require an internet connection with no offline mode. The most material concern with Trae is privacy. Security researchers confirmed in 2025 that Trae collects detailed telemetry, including file paths, hardware identifiers, and behavioral metrics, even when telemetry is toggled off in settings. ByteDance retains personal data for 5 years after account closure with no opt-out option. Teams working on proprietary codebases should evaluate this risk explicitly before adopting the tool.

Pricing

Free plan: 5,000 autocompletions, 10 fast and 50 slow premium model requests, 1,000 advanced requests/month. Lite: $3/month. Pro: $10/month with more token allowance and faster queue. Pro+: $30/month. Ultra: $100/month. On-demand pay-as-you-go available for overages. Token-based pricing launched February 24, 2026; 7-day free Pro trial for new users.

Key Features

• TRAE SOLO Autonomous Agent: Autonomous coding agent that accepts a natural-language project description, runs requirements analysis, writes the full file structure (frontend, backend, config), executes terminal commands, and shows live previews before committing any change.
• Multi-Model Selection: Lets developers switch between Claude 3.7 Sonnet, GPT-4.1, Gemini 2.5 Pro, and DeepSeek in a single session, choosing the best model for each task without switching tools or managing API keys.
• CUE Predictive Editing: Anticipates the next code edit with a single keystroke by analyzing project context, reducing repetitive typing on boilerplate patterns and sequential file changes.
• MCP Marketplace: One-click installation of Model Context Protocol servers from a built-in marketplace, connecting external databases, APIs, and services like Playwright and Supabase directly into the agent context.
• Real-Time Collaboration: Allows multiple developers to work on the same project simultaneously within the IDE, with shared context and synchronized edits, making it viable for small distributed teams.
• Figma-to-Code Workflow: Accepts design screenshots and mockups as multimodal input, analyzes the visual layout, and generates matching React component code compliant with iOS and Android design standards.
• VS Code Compatibility: Built on a VS Code fork, supporting the full VS Code extension ecosystem (.vsix marketplace) so developers import existing settings, keybindings, and language-server plugins without reconfiguration.

Pros

• Four pricing tiers from free to $100/month give developers a cost-matched option: Lite at $3/month is 7x cheaper than Cursor Pro at $20/month for light usage.
• SOLO Mode scaffolds complete full-stack projects including frontend, backend, config, and terminal commands from a single natural-language description, saving 2-4 hours of boilerplate setup on typical CRUD apps.
• Trae Agent reached #1 on SWE-bench Verified in June 2025 with 75.2%, demonstrating top-tier performance on real-world coding tasks at the time of the benchmark.
• Full VS Code extension compatibility lets developers keep their existing linting, formatting, and language-server plugins without reinstallation.

Cons

• ByteDance collects detailed telemetry (file paths, hardware IDs, behavioral metrics) with a 5-year data retention policy and no opt-out mechanism, making Trae unsuitable for proprietary or regulated codebases.
• Context tracking degrades noticeably on projects exceeding 50,000 lines, with SOLO Mode missing cross-file dependencies that Cursor's full-repo indexer handles more reliably.
• No SOC 2 certification or enterprise admin controls (SSO, audit logs, compliance reports) are available, blocking adoption at companies with security review requirements.
• Customer support is slow: documented billing issues in 2026 where Pro plan upgrades failed with no response from support within 7 days.

Frequently Asked Questions

What is Trae AI and what does it do?

Trae (The Real AI Engineer) is an AI-native code editor released by ByteDance in January 2025, built as a fork of Visual Studio Code. It provides AI-assisted code completion, inline chat, and SOLO Mode: an autonomous agent that scaffolds full-stack projects from a natural-language description. It supports Claude 3.7 Sonnet, GPT-4.1, Gemini 2.5 Pro, and DeepSeek as selectable backends, all accessible without managing API keys. Trae Agent, the open-source CLI companion, reached #1 on SWE-bench Verified in June 2025 with a 75.2% score.

How much does Trae cost in 2026?

Since February 24, 2026, Trae uses a four-tier token-based pricing model. The Free plan includes 5,000 autocompletions, 10 fast and 50 slow premium model requests, and 1,000 advanced requests per month at no cost. Lite costs $3/month and positions itself as the most affordable paid AI IDE tier on the market. Pro is $10/month with a larger token allowance and faster queue. Pro+ is $30/month and Ultra is $100/month for the highest usage. On-demand pay-as-you-go is available for overages. New users get a 7-day free Pro trial.

What are the main features of Trae?

Trae's flagship feature is SOLO Mode, an autonomous agent that reads a project description, breaks it into implementation steps, writes the full file structure, runs terminal commands, and previews each change live. CUE is a predictive editing feature that anticipates the next keystroke based on project context. Real-time collaboration allows multiple developers to share the same editor session. A Figma-to-code workflow converts design mockups into React components. The MCP marketplace provides one-click integration with external services like Supabase and Playwright.

Is Trae free to use?

Yes, Trae has a permanent free plan with no credit card required. The free tier includes 5,000 autocompletions per month, 10 fast requests and 50 slow requests to premium models like Claude 3.7 Sonnet and GPT-4.1, and 1,000 advanced requests. Free-plan requests queue behind paid users during peak hours. The Lite plan at $3/month removes most queue wait times and increases the monthly token allowance, making it the best entry-level paid option if the free limits are insufficient.

What are the best alternatives to Trae?

The closest alternatives are Cursor ($20/month), Windsurf (from $15/month), and Claude Code (usage-based). Cursor is preferred for large codebases where its full-repo indexer provides more accurate multi-file context than Trae's SOLO Mode on projects over 50,000 lines. Windsurf has a richer plugin marketplace and is a better fit for distributed teams. Claude Code is a terminal-first agent with stronger privacy guarantees and no ByteDance data concerns, better suited for developers who work outside a traditional IDE.

Who is Trae best for?

Trae is best for solo developers, students, and vibe coders who want full-stack project scaffolding at the lowest possible price point, and for VS Code users who want AI features without switching editors or reinstalling extensions. The free and Lite plans make it particularly attractive for prototyping MVPs and learning projects. Trae is not suitable for developers at companies with ByteDance product restrictions, or for anyone working on proprietary or regulated codebases, given telemetry collection that cannot be disabled.

Does Trae have an API or MCP support?

Trae does not expose a public API for external integrations, but it has native Model Context Protocol (MCP) support with a one-click marketplace for installing MCP servers. Supported MCP servers include Supabase, Playwright, Context7, and CustomGPT.ai, among many others from the 60,000+ community-built MCP servers as of 2026. The open-source Trae Agent project on GitHub provides a CLI-based coding agent that can be integrated into scripts and automation pipelines. VS Code extensions work natively inside Trae for source control, deployment, and language servers.

How does Trae compare to Cursor in 2026?

Trae's Lite plan at $3/month is 7x cheaper than Cursor Pro at $20/month, and both tools provide access to Claude 3.7 Sonnet and GPT-4.1. Trae performs well on greenfield projects under 50,000 lines, but Cursor's full-repository indexing handles multi-file dependency tracking more reliably on larger codebases (89% vs Trae's 94% on multi-file refactors in one 2026 benchmark, though Cursor had higher first-pass accuracy at 87% vs 78%). Cursor has stronger enterprise data controls and SOC 2 compliance, while Trae lacks both. Choose Trae if price is the primary constraint and your codebase is under 50,000 lines.

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