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AI · alternatives · 2026

IM

24 alternatives to I made a VS Code extension where you can use Mixtral 8x7B for free

Hey guys, I made a VS Code extension, within which you can use the Mixtral 8x7B AI model for free. Mixtral 8x7B is a new AI model from the Mistral family, which outperforms GPT-3 in many benchmarks, a fact that I have personally confirmed in daily coding tasks, where Mistral 8x7B was the clear winner. You can use all the AI features, such as AI Lens with custom instructions and similar. I'm pretty sure some of features will be useful to you. I'd appreciate both, positive and negative feedback!

Below are 24 products that do a similar job, ranked by how close each is in meaning and then by launch-day votes. I made a VS Code extension where you can use Mixtral 8x7B for free launched in 2023; newer entries below may have overtaken it.

  1. 1

    Hey HN! We’ve forked Jupyter Lab and added AI code generation features that feel native and have all the context about your notebook. You can see a demo video (2 min) here: https://www.tella.tv/video/clxt7ei4v00rr09i5gt1laop6/view Try a hosted version here: https://pretzelai.app Jupyter is by far the most used Data Science tool. Despite its popularity, it still lacks good code-generation extensions. The flagship AI extension jupyter-ai lags far behind in features and UX compared to modern AI code generation and understanding tools (like…

    2024 · github.com · its alternatives →

  2. 2

    Hello HN, I don't post on here much, but wanted to get some eyes on a new project I'm just launching. I think we definitely need one more AI code agent.. I'm a long-term C++ dev, and over 30+ years I've created some successful audio dev tools (JUCE, the Tracktion DAW, the Cmajor DSP language). All of these came from me getting annoyed with something I had to use, and deciding to have a go at my own take on whatever it was. So Juggler is my attempt at an AI code agent, after spending too many hours loving what the models could do, but hating the CLI experience, and having some opinions of…

    Jul 2026 · github.com · its alternatives →

  3. 3WM

    Try it out! https://glhf.chat/ Hey HN! We’ve been working for the past few months on a website to let you easily run (almost) any open-source LLM on autoscaling GPU clusters. It’s free for now while we figure out how to price it, but we expect to be cheaper than most GPU offerings since we can run the models multi-tenant. Unlike Together AI, Fireworks, etc, we’ll run any model that the open-source vLLM project supports: we don’t have a hardcoded list. If you want a specific model or finetune, you don’t have to ask us for it: you can just paste the Hugging Face link in and…

    2024 · glhf.chat · its alternatives →

  4. 4

    The fast, easy and cheap OpenAI alternative

    2023 · lemonfox.ai · its alternatives →

  5. 5IU

    Hi Hacker News, This is definitely out of my comfort zone. I just wanted to show you guys because I'm super proud of it. It's a 100% faithful recreation based off of the schematics, patents, and ROMs that were found online. So please watch the video and tell me what you think https://youtu.be/auOlZXI1VxA The reason why I think this is relevant is because I've been a programmer for 25 years and AI scares the shit out of me. I'm not a programmer anymore. I'm something else now. I don't know what it is but it's multi-disciplinary, and it doesn't involve writing code myself--for…

    Jan 2026 · its alternatives →

  6. 6

    I’ve been building a small hardware box that runs local LLMs like Mistral, Qwen and Llama, and exposes an OpenAI compatible API on your local network. There’s no cloud, no login system and no telemetry. I built it because a lot of small firms want ChatGPTbstyle tools but can’t use cloud AI for privacy or compliance reasons, and most don’t want to deal with GPU servers, drivers, Docker or model configs. The aim is to make local AI feel as simple as plugging in a router. Right now the box boots into a very simple web UI where you choose a model and start using it. The API follows the OpenAI…

    Nov 2025 · axis-one-psi.vercel.app · its alternatives →

  7. 7TF

    I’d originally launched my app: Private LLM[1][2] on HN around 10 months ago, with a single RedPajama Chat 3B model. The app has come a long way since then. About a month ago, I added support for 4-bit OmniQuant quantized Mixtral 8x7B Instruct model, and it seems to outperform Q4 models at inference speed and Q8 models at text generation quality, while consuming only about 24GB of RAM[3] at 8k context length. The trick is: a) to use a better quantization algorithm and b) to use unquantized embeddings and the MoE gates (the overhead is quite small). Other notable features include many more…

    2024 · its alternatives →

  8. 8FT

    Hey HN! When implementing an AI-powered feature for a project, we—and many people we've talked to—often reach a point where we have to choose an AI model but aren’t sure which one best fits our constraints or where to even start. Unfortunately, the advice to "just use chatgpt" is not always a good one. What if I want an open-source model? What languages does it support? What about context window size or the number of parameters? There are thousands of AI models already out there and many of them are perfect for certain problems. That’s why we’ve carved out this part of our product as a free…

    2024 · app.elementera.ca · its alternatives →

  9. 9

    Hey HN! We’ve been experimenting with integrating multimodal models directly into creative workflows, and ended up building an AI-first image editor using OpenAI’s new `gpt-image-1` (from GPT-4o) inside our SDK. Instead of prompting in ChatGPT and pasting outputs into a design tool, this lets you generate, edit, and remix images all in one canvas. This allows for really interesting new workflows, like quickly mixing multiple images, or creating visual prompts by using annotations and reference on the canvas. Some key details: - Built with our plugin system in CE.SDK (CreativeEditor SDK) -…

    2025 · img.ly · its alternatives →

  10. 10

    AI Pixel Art Avatar Generator & Free Online Pixel Art Studio

    Jan 2026 · mixels.ai · its alternatives →

  11. 11

    We’ve open-sourced Heygem, a fast and free alternative to Heygen. It generates photorealistic AI avatar videos from a photo and voice — no training, no watermark, runs locally on 8GB GPUs, and supports 4K output. Ideal for developers building AI avatar pipelines with minimal setup. Built by the team behind duix.com. Feedback and contributions welcome!

    2025 · github.com · its alternatives →

  12. 12

    The Sweet Spot for Open-Source Multimodal AI

    2025 · huggingface.co · its alternatives →

  13. 13

    Hi HN! Since the launch of JigsawStack.com, we've been trying to dive deeper into fully managed AI APIs built and fine tuned for specific use cases. Audio/video transcription was one of the more basic things and we wanted the best open source model at this point it is OpenAI's whisper large v3 model based on the number of languages it supports and its accuracy. The thing is, the model is huge and requires tons of GPU power for it to run efficiently at scale. Even OpenAI doesn't provide an API for their best transcription model while only providing whisper v2 at a pretty high price. I…

    2024 · github.com · its alternatives →

  14. 14WH

    Hey guys, I'm investing a ton of time on writing unit tests, for both enterprise and personal projects. I came up with the idea to make extension for AI-generated tests and cases within a VS Code. Happy to hear feedback, both positive and negative.

    2024 · marketplace.visualstudio.com · its alternatives →

  15. 15

    Access the World's Leading AI Models in one place

    2025 · izzedo.chat · its alternatives →

  16. 16

    I love Claude Code but got tired of having nothing to do while I waited for sessions to finish, and managing multiple sessions on the command line was getting annoying and I kept losing track of the tabs. I originally built a quick and dirty version of this for my own use, but decided to polish it up and make it open source. The idea is that you should be able to do all your agentic coding without leaving the tool or needing to go back to a traditional IDE. You can view the diffs, run your program, and merge your changes back. I support OSX and Linux right now, but could add Windows support…

    2025 · github.com · its alternatives →

  17. 17IM

    Hello everyone, This past Saturday, I decided to make purchase on Cursor after hearing how good it is with Composer function that allow to generate code on fly, especially on Claude Sonnet (not an affiliate of the products, just curious!). To make the purchase worthwhile, I challenged myself to build a Google Sheets extension in just 24 hours that allows users to connect with any Language Model (LLM)—whether it’s ChatGPT, Claude, Groq, or Gemini. The Idea The idea was simple: a formula like =Claude(prompt, model) that lets users integrate AI anywhere in their sheets. The most impressive…

    2024 · aisheeter.com · its alternatives →

  18. 18

    Hey HN, I built a web tool that wraps the latest AI image generation models with a conversational interface. The main idea is you can iterate on images through natural dialogue instead of rewriting prompts from scratch each time. Key features I focused on: - Multi-turn editing (the AI remembers previous context) - Character/style consistency across multiple images - Multi-image fusion Not affiliated with OpenAI – the name is just a playful nod. Would love feedback from this community, especially on the UX and what features would be useful for technical users. Try it:…

    2025 · gptimage.ai · its alternatives →

  19. 19

    Hey HN, We’ve been building out an API for ‘Visual ETL’ that we call vlm.run. We’ve been working with foundation models (GPT4o, Gemini) for a few months and kept running into failure modes like: - Hallucinations: even the best foundation models continue to hallucinate outputs for complex visual inputs, even when adhering to a schema. - Rate limits: frontier models like GPT4o are still too expensive or rate limited for high volume visual data. Our API is designed for production workloads which means speed, stability, monitoring and, if needed, private deployments. - Off the shelf schemas:…

    Jun 2026 · vlm.run · its alternatives →

  20. 20
    WorqHat▲14

    World-Class AI Models for you to build Amazing Products

    2024 · worqhat.com · its alternatives →

  21. 21

    BudgetPixel is an AI creative suite that unifies image, video, and audio generation under one account and credit system. Use 100+ models like Flux, Midjourney, Kling, Veo, Qwen, and SeeDream to generate and edit visuals and sound, with pro tools for inpainting, ControlNet, upscal

    2025 · budgetpixel.com · its alternatives →

  22. 22

    Hi HN! I've never posted anything on here before, but this project was too fun to pass up. I've been learning a lot about agents lately, and wanted to see if I could replicate some of the results of Windsurf and Cursor. Generally I love these tools, but when you're stuck behind an "enterprise" firewall, they don't work as well. This sad state of affairs motivated me to understand SWE agents more. Does it work? Yes. Is it as good as Cursor and Windsurf? Not quite, but it's pretty darn close, depending on the model you use. I'm lacking a few features like semantic indexing, MCP support, but…

    2025 · github.com · its alternatives →

  23. 23MY

    Hi HN, I’m excited to introduce Mode, now in early access! Mode is a Visual Studio Code extension I’ve been working on, acting as your personal AI code copilot. It’s a reliable backup to coding tools like Cursor, especially when you run out of free tokens. Try it out here: https://marketplace.visualstudio.com/items?itemName=aruna-la... Why Use Mode: Bypass Token Limitations: If you find yourself copy-pasting code into ChatGPT or Claude after running out of free tokens, Mode is for you. Mode lets you to use your own API keys and subscriptions, giving you uninterrupted, seamless…

    2024 · its alternatives →

  24. 24

    I built my own AI coding agent for you.

    Oct 2025 · snailer.ai · its alternatives →

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