How is this software development ranking decided?

Mechanically. The 16 approved software development listings on this page are sorted by their published rating, highest first, with the number of ratings behind each score as the tie-break and the product name as a final tie-break so the order is stable. Those ratings are aggregated from public sources, not collected from Softwr readers, this site hosts no reviews, so the order is a summary of what is already published elsewhere, not a verdict of our own. Nothing on this page is paid placement.

Is this list re-ordered for startups?

No, and it would be dishonest to imply otherwise. The catalogue records no data about which team sizes or roles each tool suits, so the ranking is the same published-rating order as the unsegmented list. What the startups framing changes is which of the figures below matter most. Startups are buying for a headcount they do not have yet, which makes the second and third tier of each ladder more important than the first. Check what the price becomes at ten people.

How much does software development software cost?

Across the 16 software development tools listed here, paid plans start between $10 and $20 a month, with a median entry price of $20. The most expensive single tier published in the category is $200 a month (Windsurf). 4 of 16 also publish a $0 plan.

What is the cheapest software development software?

1 of the 16 tools listed here cost nothing at all. Among the ones that charge, Zed has the lowest published entry price at $10 a month. Cheapest and best value are different questions: check which tier the capability you need actually appears in before you compare starting prices.

Is there free software development software?

Yes, 4 of 16 tools in this category publish a plan priced at $0. 1 of them are free outright, with no paid tier above. A tool is only counted as free here when it publishes a $0 plan, an open-source licence, or a starting price of zero, a free trial does not count.

How is software development software usually billed?

usage-based (7), subscription (4), freemium (2), open-source (1), counted across the 16 listings on this page. The distinction that costs money is per-seat versus flat: a per-user plan at the same headline price scales with your headcount and a flat subscription does not.

What does software development software actually cover?

The 16 tools on this page do not describe themselves the same way. The subject tags they carry most often are ai (3), development (3), code-editor (2). That spread is the honest answer to what the category means in practice: it is not one product shape, and two tools filed under software development may overlap on very little.

How many pricing tiers do software development tools offer?

3 of 16 tools here publish a plan breakdown, and the median one has 4 tiers. 2 of 16 publish three or more. More tiers is not generosity, it usually means the capability you are buying for sits two rungs above the advertised price, so price your shortlist at the tier that contains it.

How many software development tools are listed on Softwr?

16 approved software development listings appear on this page, including Amp, Augment Code, Baseten, Braintrust. Each links to a full breakdown with its pricing tiers and plan detail, and the category can be filtered by price and sorted by rating above. You can also read the shortlist view at /best/software-development, which ranks the same set by published rating.

Software Development · ranked shortlist

Best Software Development software for Startups in 2026

16 approved software development listings, ordered by published rating with the method stated below rather than assumed. Startups are buying for a headcount they do not have yet, which makes the second and third tier of each ladder more important than the first. Check what the price becomes at ten people.

Tools ranked: 16
Entry price range: $10-$20
Publish a $0 plan: 4 of 16

How this ranking is derived

The sort key

Published rating, highest first. Ties break on the number of ratings behind the score, then on product name so the order never depends on what the API happened to return first. That is the whole rule, there is no weighting, no score of our own, and nothing paid: no sponsored slot runs on these pages.

Where the ratings come from

No listing in this set carries a rating, so the order falls back to name. Those scores are aggregated from public sources rather than collected here, Softwr hosts no reviews of its own, which is also why no rating on this page is marked up as ours in structured data.

What the pool is

Approved software development listings, capped at 20 per page; 16 came back for this one. It is not the whole market, and a tool being absent means we hold no record of it rather than that it failed a test. The unranked full set is on the software development category page.

The ranking

Each entry lists why it sits where it sits, drawn from its own published rating and pricing.

#1
A
Amp
Highest rated here
Amp is the frontier agent
- No rating on record, so it ranks below everything that has one.
Billing
usage-based
Amp breakdown Compare with Augment Code
#2
A
Augment Code
Agentic software development at organizational scale
- No rating on record, so it ranks below everything that has one.
Billing
subscription
Augment Code breakdown Compare with Baseten
#3
B
Baseten
Inference is everything
- No rating on record, so it ranks below everything that has one.
Billing
usage-based
Baseten breakdown Compare with Braintrust
#4
B
Braintrust
The active observability platform for agents
- No rating on record, so it ranks below everything that has one.
Billing
usage-based
Braintrust breakdown Compare with Bun
#5
Bun
JavaScript runtime, bundler, test runner and package manager unified in single toolchain
- No rating on record, so it ranks below everything that has one.
- Free, no paid tier is published at all.
Billing
open-source
Bun breakdown Compare with Cline
#6
C
Cline
The Open Coding Agent
- No rating on record, so it ranks below everything that has one.
Billing
usage-based
Cline breakdown Compare with Cursor
#7
Cursor
The AI-first code editor
- No rating on record, so it ranks below everything that has one.
- Publishes a $0 plan, with paid tiers from $20 a month.
- 4 published tiers, topping out at $60.
Billing
Model not published
Published tiers
4 tiers
Tags
ai, code-editor, development, productivity
Cursor breakdown Compare with Devin
#8
Devin
Autonomous AI software engineer planning and executing code in its own environment
- No rating on record, so it ranks below everything that has one.
Billing
subscription
Devin breakdown Compare with Factory
#9
F
Factory
The autonomy stack for enterprise teams
- No rating on record, so it ranks below everything that has one.
Billing
subscription
Factory breakdown Compare with Humanloop
#10
H
Humanloop
The LLM evals platform for enterprises
- No rating on record, so it ranks below everything that has one.
Billing
freemium
Humanloop breakdown Compare with Langfuse
#11
L
Langfuse
Simple pricing for projects of all sizes
- No rating on record, so it ranks below everything that has one.
Billing
usage-based
Langfuse breakdown Compare with LangSmith
#12
L
LangSmith
Know what your agents are really doing
- No rating on record, so it ranks below everything that has one.
Billing
subscription
LangSmith breakdown Compare with Qodo
#13
Q
Qodo
Govern code at the speed AI writes it
- No rating on record, so it ranks below everything that has one.
Billing
usage-based
Qodo breakdown Compare with Val Town
#14
V
Val Town
The deployment platform for internal tools
- No rating on record, so it ranks below everything that has one.
Billing
usage-based
Val Town breakdown Compare with Windsurf
#15
Windsurf
The agentic IDE
- No rating on record, so it ranks below everything that has one.
- Publishes a $0 plan, with paid tiers from $20 a month.
- 4 published tiers, topping out at $200.
Billing
Model not published
Published tiers
4 tiers
Tags
ai, ide, agentic, development
Windsurf breakdown Compare with Zed
#16
Zed
Code at the speed of thought
- No rating on record, so it ranks below everything that has one.
- Publishes a $0 plan, with paid tiers from $10 a month.
Billing
freemium
Published tiers
2 tiers
Tags
code-editor, rust, collaboration, ai
Zed breakdown

What software development software costs

Counted from the published pricing of the 16 listings on this page. A tool counts as free only where it publishes a $0 plan, an open-source licence or a starting price of zero.

Cheapest paid plan: $10Zed
Median entry price: $20across 3 priced
Dearest entry price: $20Cursor
Publish a $0 plan: 4of 16

Paid software development plans in this set start anywhere from $10 a month for Zed to $20 for Cursor. The median entry price across the 3 tools that publish one is $20, half of them start below that figure and half above it.

Entry price is not the ceiling. The dearest published tier anywhere in this category is Windsurf's at $200 a month, 10× the highest entry price on the page. Read the top of each ladder as well as the bottom, because that is where you land after two years of growth.

4 of 16 publish a $0 plan, and 1 of those charge nothing at all.

Zed pricing Cursor pricing Windsurf plans

How these vendors bill

The billing model each of the 16 software development listings publishes, counted. Two tools at the same headline price are not the same purchase if one of them charges per seat.

usage-based: 7
subscription: 4
freemium: 2
open-source: 1

What “Software Development” covers in practice

The subject tags that recur across these 16 listings, with the number of tools carrying each. A category label is a filing decision; this is the closer read of what is actually filed under it.

ai3
development3
code-editor2

Carried by a single tool: agentic, coding-assistant, collaboration, ide, productivity, rust, vscode. If one of those is the reason you are here, the category page is the wrong lens, go straight to that product.

How to choose between them

Four things the numbers above should change about your shortlist.

Start with the free tiers if there are enough of them

4 of 16 software development tools here publish a $0 plan, which is enough to run a real trial without a purchase order. A free tier is worth more than a free trial when you are evaluating: a trial expires on the vendor's schedule, a free plan expires when you outgrow it. The thing to check before you commit is which of the capabilities below sit above the free line.

Read the spread before you read the features

$10 to $20 is a $10 spread on entry price alone, and a spread that wide is never about polish, it is about who the vendor built for. Tools at the bottom of this ladder are priced for one person or a small team; tools near $20 are priced for a department with a procurement process. Decide which of those you are before you compare capability, or you will shortlist four tools that were never competing for the same buyer.

Check which tier you actually land on

2 of 16 tools here publish three or more tiers, and the median vendor in this category ships 4 of them. The advertised price is the first rung. Price your shortlist at the tier that contains what you need, not at the tier on the pricing page's left edge.

The billing model matters more than the headline number

This category splits across 4 billing models: usage-based on 7 listings, subscription on 4, and 2 other arrangements across the rest. A per-user price and a flat subscription at the same headline figure are not the same purchase, the first one grows with headcount and the second does not. Multiply by your real team size before you compare two numbers side by side.

Compare software development tools directly

Every pairing below is a full comparison: the same checklist applied to both, so a gap in one is a gap in the other.

Go straight to the numbers

Build your own comparison See the shortlist instead

Questions people ask about software development software

Answered from the listings on this page, and nowhere else.

How is this software development ranking decided?: Mechanically. The 16 approved software development listings on this page are sorted by their published rating, highest first, with the number of ratings behind each score as the tie-break and the product name as a final tie-break so the order is stable. Those ratings are aggregated from public sources, not collected from Softwr readers, this site hosts no reviews, so the order is a summary of what is already published elsewhere, not a verdict of our own. Nothing on this page is paid placement.
Is this list re-ordered for startups?: No, and it would be dishonest to imply otherwise. The catalogue records no data about which team sizes or roles each tool suits, so the ranking is the same published-rating order as the unsegmented list. What the startups framing changes is which of the figures below matter most. Startups are buying for a headcount they do not have yet, which makes the second and third tier of each ladder more important than the first. Check what the price becomes at ten people.
How much does software development software cost?: Across the 16 software development tools listed here, paid plans start between $10 and $20 a month, with a median entry price of $20. The most expensive single tier published in the category is $200 a month (Windsurf). 4 of 16 also publish a $0 plan.
What is the cheapest software development software?: 1 of the 16 tools listed here cost nothing at all. Among the ones that charge, Zed has the lowest published entry price at $10 a month. Cheapest and best value are different questions: check which tier the capability you need actually appears in before you compare starting prices.
Is there free software development software?: Yes, 4 of 16 tools in this category publish a plan priced at $0. 1 of them are free outright, with no paid tier above. A tool is only counted as free here when it publishes a $0 plan, an open-source licence, or a starting price of zero, a free trial does not count.
How is software development software usually billed?: usage-based (7), subscription (4), freemium (2), open-source (1), counted across the 16 listings on this page. The distinction that costs money is per-seat versus flat: a per-user plan at the same headline price scales with your headcount and a flat subscription does not.
What does software development software actually cover?: The 16 tools on this page do not describe themselves the same way. The subject tags they carry most often are ai (3), development (3), code-editor (2). That spread is the honest answer to what the category means in practice: it is not one product shape, and two tools filed under software development may overlap on very little.
How many pricing tiers do software development tools offer?: 3 of 16 tools here publish a plan breakdown, and the median one has 4 tiers. 2 of 16 publish three or more. More tiers is not generosity, it usually means the capability you are buying for sits two rungs above the advertised price, so price your shortlist at the tier that contains it.
How many software development tools are listed on Softwr?: 16 approved software development listings appear on this page, including Amp, Augment Code, Baseten, Braintrust. Each links to a full breakdown with its pricing tiers and plan detail, and the category can be filtered by price and sorted by rating above. You can also read the shortlist view at /best/software-development, which ranks the same set by published rating.

Keep reading

Neighbouring categories

Adjacent in the same taxonomy, not a ranking.

How this ranking is derived

The sort key

Where the ratings come from

What the pool is

The ranking

Amp

Augment Code

Baseten

Braintrust

Bun

Cline

Cursor

Devin

Factory

Humanloop

Langfuse

LangSmith

Qodo

Val Town

Windsurf

Zed