Tools We Actually Use
No affiliate bullshit rankings. Real tools. Real reviews.
37 tools we've personally battle-tested.
AI Coding IDEs
AI-powered code editors
Cursor
✓ BATTLE-TESTEDAI-first code editor with Composer, MCP, and multi-model support. Powerful but steep learning curve.
"Wicked once you get it. Expense concerns and Google catching up drop it to 4/5."
Windsurf
✓ BATTLE-TESTEDCodeium AI IDE with Cascade for multi-file edits.
VS Code + Copilot
✓ BATTLE-TESTEDClassic VS Code with GitHub Copilot.
Zed
Fast multiplayer editor with AI built-in.
Terminal Agents
CLI coding assistants
Claude Code
✓ BATTLE-TESTEDAnthropic CLI agent. Agentic coding in terminal.
"What Pinky runs on. Agentic coding at its finest."
Codex CLI
✓ BATTLE-TESTEDOpenAI terminal coding agent.
Gemini CLI
✓ BATTLE-TESTEDGoogle Gemini in the terminal.
Aider
AI pair programming in terminal.
OpenCode
Open source terminal coding agent.
Language Models
Chat & LLM platforms
Claude
✓ BATTLE-TESTEDAnthropic AI. Best for coding and reasoning.
"My main AI. The brain behind everything."
ChatGPT
✓ BATTLE-TESTEDOpenAI GPT-4 powered assistant.
Grok
✓ BATTLE-TESTEDxAI unfiltered AI with real-time X data.
Gemini
✓ BATTLE-TESTEDGoogle multimodal AI. Great long context.
Video Creation
AI video generation
Runway
✓ BATTLE-TESTEDGen-3 Alpha video. Industry standard.
"Best video AI right now. Gen-3 is insane."
Sora
OpenAI text-to-video model.
Veo
✓ BATTLE-TESTEDGoogle video generation via Gemini.
Kling
Kuaishou video generation.
Pika
AI video generation and editing.
Luma Dream Machine
✓ BATTLE-TESTEDFast video generation with great motion.
Haiper
Free AI video generator.
Minimax/Hailuo
Chinese video AI with great quality.
Image Generation
AI image creation
Midjourney
✓ BATTLE-TESTEDBest aesthetic image gen. Discord-based.
"Still the king of aesthetics. Nothing beats MJ."
DALL-E 3
✓ BATTLE-TESTEDOpenAI image generation in ChatGPT.
Leonardo.ai
✓ BATTLE-TESTEDPhoenix model. Great for consistent characters.
Imagen 4
✓ BATTLE-TESTEDGoogle image gen via Gemini API.
Ideogram
✓ BATTLE-TESTEDGreat for text in images and logos.
Flux
Black Forest Labs. Great open model.
SeaArt.ai
✓ BATTLE-TESTEDUncensored/NSFW capable. Great for characters.
"When you need spicy content. No filters."
Civitai
Stable Diffusion models & community.
Stable Diffusion
✓ BATTLE-TESTEDOpen source. Run locally or via API.
Playground AI
Free image gen with multiple models.
Tensor.Art
SD models online. Good for anime.
Voice & Audio
TTS, cloning, transcription
ElevenLabs
✓ BATTLE-TESTEDBest TTS. Voice cloning. Emotions.
"The voice standard. Nothing else comes close."
Whisper
✓ BATTLE-TESTEDOpenAI speech-to-text. Best transcription.
"Best transcription. Use it for everything."
OpenAI TTS
✓ BATTLE-TESTEDOpenAI text-to-speech API.
Descript
AI audio/video editor. Overdub voice cloning.
Music Creation
AI music generation
UX & Design
AI design tools
v0.dev
✓ BATTLE-TESTEDVercel AI UI generator. React/Next components.
"Insane for quick UI. Just describe what you want."
UX Pilot
✓ BATTLE-TESTEDAI-powered UX design tool.
Bolt.new
✓ BATTLE-TESTEDAI app builder. Full stack in browser.
Lovable
✓ BATTLE-TESTEDAI app builder with Supabase integration.
Replit
✓ BATTLE-TESTEDAI-powered online IDE and deployment.
APIs & Infra
Developer platforms
OpenAI API
✓ BATTLE-TESTEDGPT-4, DALL-E, Whisper, TTS all in one.
Anthropic API
✓ BATTLE-TESTEDClaude API. Best for coding.
Gemini API
✓ BATTLE-TESTEDGoogle API. Vertex AI integration.
Replicate
✓ BATTLE-TESTEDRun any open source model via API.
Research
AI search & research
Deploy
Hosting & deployment
Vercel
✓ BATTLE-TESTEDDeploy Next.js and React. Best DX.
"Gold standard for deployment."
Supabase
✓ BATTLE-TESTEDPostgres + Auth + Storage + Realtime.
"Firebase killer. Backend in minutes."
Cloudflare
✓ BATTLE-TESTEDEdge computing, CDN, Workers, AI.