Independent · Engineer-tested
Honest reviews of the AI tools developers actually use.
We put AI coding assistants, code-review bots, and dev-workflow tools through real projects — then tell you, plainly, what's worth paying for.
Guides · 11 min read
Spotify's 90% Claude Code saving: what your repo gets
Spotify says its shunt plugin cuts 90% of tokens on bulk file reads. We counted 5,131 reads across 761 real Claude Code sessions to see how often it would fire.
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Guides
How to make Claude Code less verbose: 3 fixes, measured
We measured Claude Code's default output against a CLAUDE.md rule, the 32K-star i-have-adhd skill, and the built-in Concise style. The built-in wins.
Guides
Using any LLM with Codex CLI: what the proxy sends
We routed Codex CLI through a universal provider proxy and captured the wire: 51,731 bytes left for a five-word prompt, and half the guides online are broken.
Guides
Is OpenCode private by default? Reading the source
Two privacy claims about OpenCode get repeated everywhere. We read the source at tag v1.18.28: one is stale, the other is narrower than it sounds.
Guides
What GitHub Copilot sends: we ran it through mitmproxy
We put VS Code behind mitmproxy and counted every byte Copilot uploads: 890KB of telemetry before sign-in, what a completion carries, and what agent mode costs.
Reviews
Vercel fx review: we measured the 10µs agent
Vercel Labs' 6 MB Zig coding agent, measured: real startup times, the 25 KB it sends before your prompt, and the Claude Code skills it reads.
Guides
Cursor usage page shows tokens, not dollars: find the cost
Since July 31 Cursor's Usage page is tokens-only on every self-serve plan. Where the dollars still live, how to rebuild the rest, and the workaround that fails.
Tested in real projects
We use these tools on actual codebases — not feature checklists or marketing demos.
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Kept current
AI tooling moves fast. We revisit and update reviews as products ship changes.
Engineer's perspective
Written from the point of view of people who ship software for a living.
Want the full picture? Read about our testing approach.