How to choose an AI coding agent without the hype
Editors, terminals, cloud sandboxes and app builders all call themselves agents now. Here is how they differ, and how to pick the one that fits the way you work.
A year ago, "AI for coding" mostly meant autocomplete. Today the same phrase covers tools that read a whole repository, run your tests, open pull requests and even deploy the result. They all call themselves agents. They are not interchangeable.
The fastest way to cut through the marketing is to ask one question: where does the work happen? The answer sorts almost every tool into one of four groups.
1. In your editor
Tools like Cursor and GitHub Copilot live inside the editor you already use. They are at their best when you are actively writing code and want suggestions, quick explanations and small, reviewable changes. You stay in the driving seat the whole time.
2. In your terminal
Terminal agents such as Claude Code work at the level of the project rather than the open file. You describe an outcome, and the agent plans, edits several files, runs commands and reports back. This suits refactors, migrations and getting productive in a codebase you do not know yet.
3. In the cloud, in parallel
Cloud agents like Codex take a task, spin up a sandbox and come back later with a pull request. The appeal is parallelism: you can hand off five chores at once and review the results. The trade-off is that you are reviewing finished work rather than steering it.
4. In the browser, from a prompt
App builders such as Lovable, Replit and v0 start from a description and give you a running product. They are ideal for prototypes, internal tools and people who do not code, and many now export real code you can keep building on.
Pick the tool that matches where you want to spend your attention: writing, steering, or reviewing.
A simple way to decide
- If you write code every day and want speed, start in the editor.
- If your work is mostly changes across a large codebase, try a terminal agent.
- If you have a backlog of well-defined chores, a cloud agent will clear it.
- If you need something working by Friday and do not code, use an app builder.
Whichever you choose, keep two habits. Review every change as if a new colleague wrote it, and keep your tests close. Agents are fast. Good review is what makes them safe.
