Name: Trae
Author: ByteDance

Question 1

Is Trae really free?

Accepted Answer

Yes — there's a permanent free tier with no credit card that includes thousands of autocompletions and a quota of premium-model requests (Claude, GPT, Gemini, DeepSeek). Paid tiers start around $3/mo (Lite) and scale up to higher Pro/Ultra tiers, raising usage limits via a token-based model.

Question 2

How is Trae different from Cursor or Copilot?

Accepted Answer

Like Cursor, it's a VS Code-based AI IDE, but Trae is free-first from ByteDance, bundles multiple frontier models without API keys, and leads with autonomous Builder and SOLO modes that scaffold entire projects rather than just assisting line-by-line.