---
type: source
title: "You NEED These 5 Tools For Coding!! (Better Than ChatGPT)"
description: "An early-2023 roundup of five AI coding assistants (GitHub Copilot, Tabnine, Mutable.ai, Sapphire AI, 10Web) that offload the tedious, low-leverage parts of software development so developers can focus on what matters."
youtube_id: nK6kMbZWqV8
url: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nK6kMbZWqV8
slug: you-need-these-5-tools-for-coding-better-than-chatgpt
published: 2023-04-29
duration: "0:12:50"
recency_rank: 196
raw: "../raw/you-need-these-5-tools-for-coding-better-than-chatgpt.md"
tags: [ai-coding-assistant, tools-roundup, developer-productivity]
created: 2026-07-21
updated: 2026-07-21
---

# You NEED These 5 Tools For Coding!! (Better Than ChatGPT)

This is one of Cole Medin's earliest videos, a survey of the first wave of AI coding tools in April 2023. The framing is that coding has many tedious, low-leverage pain points (writing tests, adding documentation, remembering syntax) and AI can now automate them, freeing developers to build what actually matters. He walks through five tools and repeatedly draws the same key distinction: some assistants push automatic inline suggestions as you type (GitHub Copilot, Tabnine, paid Mutable.ai), while others require you to manually invoke the AI with a keyboard shortcut (free Mutable.ai, Sapphire AI). He notes the choice is largely preference.

The tools covered are GitHub Copilot (the most popular, roughly $10/mo, understands API responses and good code structure), Tabnine (a heavy autocomplete that infers a whole database schema and helper functions from just a name), Mutable.ai (free for manual suggestions, with dedicated documentation-generation features), Sapphire AI (a free, newer, manual-invoke VS Code extension), and 10Web (an outlier: AI-powered WordPress site building, hosting, and page-speed automation rather than in-IDE coding).

Recurring themes are that AI is especially valuable for the tasks developers dread, writing tests and adding documentation, because those feel like they don't advance the end product. The video is a time capsule of the pre-Copilot-Chat, pre-agent era, and Cole closes by predicting the space will change so fast that a similar video will be worth making within the year.

## Concepts covered

- [AI Coding Assistant](../concepts/ai-coding-assistant.md)
- [AI Coding Assistant UX Patterns](../concepts/ai-coding-ux.md)
- [Everyday AI Coding Use Cases](../concepts/ai-coding-use-cases.md)

## Entities

- [Cole Medin](../entities/people/cole-medin.md)

## Key moments

- **[0:00:41]** Framing: AI removes the low-leverage, tedious details so you can build what matters
- **[0:00:57]** Core distinction introduced: automatic inline suggestions vs manual-request assistants
- **[0:01:25]** Tool 1: GitHub Copilot, most popular, roughly $10/mo, understands APIs and good structure
- **[0:03:00]** AI for writing tests, the most tedious dev task
- **[0:04:15]** Tool 2: Tabnine, heavy autocomplete infers a DB schema from just a name
- **[0:06:07]** Tool 3: Mutable.ai, free manual suggestions, dedicated documentation features
- **[0:08:20]** Tool 4: Sapphire AI, free, newer, manual-invoke VS Code extension
- **[0:09:50]** Tool 5: 10Web, AI-powered WordPress site building/hosting/speed

## Transcript

[Raw transcript](../raw/you-need-these-5-tools-for-coding-better-than-chatgpt.md)
