The tools I actually use.

Every week I work across dozens of projects. That means I spend real time inside these tools, not just reading about them. If something on this list stops being useful, it gets replaced. If something new works better, it gets added.

This is not a list of every AI product that exists. It is what I reach for when I am solving real problems for real clients. Code editors, LLMs, APIs, vector stores, MCP tooling, and the development stack I build on top of.

Most of my client projects are built with Next.js, TypeScript, and Tailwind, deployed on Vercel or similar platforms. The AI layer changes depending on the project. Sometimes it is a chatbot powered by the OpenAI API. Sometimes it is Cursor generating an entire feature branch. Sometimes it is Claude reviewing a pull request.

The point is not to use every tool. The point is to know which one fits each situation. That is a big part of the work I do with clients: cutting through the noise and picking the right tool for their specific problem.

CODE EDITORS & IDES

CursorCursor ProWarpClineContinueAiderVS Code

AI CODE ASSISTANTS

GitHub CopilotGitHub Copilot XTabnineCodeiumReplit AICodeWhispererSourcegraph CodyCodexStarcoder

LARGE LANGUAGE MODELS

ChatGPTGPT-4ClaudeClaude 3.5 SonnetClaude DesktopGeminiPerplexityGrokMistral AIOllamaLM Studio

AI PLATFORMS & APIS

OpenAI APIAnthropic APIHugging FaceReplicateTogether AICohereVercel AI SDK

AI DEVELOPMENT TOOLS

v0LovableBolt.newLangChainNotebookLMAmazon QMicrosoft 365 Copilot

Model Context Protocol (MCP) Ecosystem

Cline

VSCode plugin with autonomous CLI capabilities

Continue

Highly configurable coding assistant

Cursor IDE

AI-powered code editor

Claude Desktop

Anthropic's native implementation

VS Code

Enhanced GitHub Copilot agent mode

LibreChat

Open-source LLM chat client

MCP DEVELOPMENT TOOLS

Inspector

MCP server debugging tool

ChatMCP

Cross-platform LLM chat UI

Open MCP Client

Web-based embeddable client

MCPJam Inspector

React-based debugging interface

VECTOR DATABASES & EMBEDDINGS

PineconeWeaviateChromaLlamaIndexOpenAI EmbeddingsFAISSQdrantMilvus

Development Stack

Next.js

React Framework

Production-ready React applications

TypeScript

Language

Type-safe JavaScript development

Tailwind CSS

Styling

Utility-first CSS framework

Vercel

Deployment

Instant deployment and scaling

Supabase

Database

Open-source Firebase alternative

Prisma

ORM

Next-generation database toolkit

tRPC

API

End-to-end typesafe APIs

React Hook Form

Forms

Performant form validation

Zod

Validation

TypeScript-first schema validation

Shadcn/ui

Components

Re-usable component library

Framer Motion

Animation

Production-ready motion library

Playwright

Testing

End-to-end testing framework

This list changes as tools improve. Want to talk about what fits your project?

Let's talk tools