Hi there,
Most AI tools want a card before they let you do anything real. This week's picks are ones you can start on a free plan, each matched to the one job it's best at.
This week's picks
1. Vibe coding a real app: Cursor
Our default pick: you keep a real codebase and editor, but the AI does most of the typing. There's a free plan with limited agent use, so you can try it on a real project first.
More options: Best AI for vibe coding
2. Prompt-to-web-app in the browser: Google AI Studio (Build mode)
Describe an app and it builds it in the browser, and it can deploy to Google Cloud Run. Google says AI Studio is free to use, with paid tiers for heavy traffic.
More options: Best AI for vibe coding
3. Handing a task to an agent: Jules
Google's beta agent works on your GitHub repo and opens pull requests, with 15 tasks a day free. When you're ready to pay for heavier multi-file work, Claude Code is still our top pick.
More options: Best AI coding agents
4. Prototyping a game: Rosebud AI
Prompt a browser game into existence, then remix other people's games. The free plan starts you with 8,000 credits, no card needed.
More options: Best AI for game prototyping
5. Running models on your own machine: Ollama
One command downloads and runs open models locally. It's free and open source (MIT license); the only cost is your own hardware.
More options: Best AI for running local models
New this week
Replit's Agent can now watch your live app and try fixes (Oct 23). The new Monitoring Agent reads your published app's logs and metrics, investigates production problems, and attempts and checks a fix. You review and publish the fix yourself unless you turn on the experimental auto-republish setting. Replit also lets eligible top-up customers keep published apps running when their credits hit zero, up to an overage limit, with warning emails before anything is suspended. Our take: this tackles the scariest part of shipping a vibe-coded app, which is what happens when it breaks while you're asleep. Leave auto-republish off until you trust it. Replit's Oct 23 changelog
Also shipped: Lovable can now create and connect a Supabase project for an app that has no backend; you pick the region, which can't be changed later, and Supabase bills that project to your own account (Oct 20). Lovable changelog
Tell us what to cover
Using a tool that deserves a spot, or one we got wrong? Write to larrys@lalipublications.com and tell us. And if a friend is picking between AI tools right now, forward this to them.
All 30 use-case guides: tools.lalipublications.com
Tool Use Cases / Lali Publications
larrys@lalipublications.com