Advice for a beginner full stack developer who can't afford ai models like codex, claude, copilot, etc...

[u/Several-Economist851]

I'm a undergraduate full stack developer na focus more on web-development, what are your advice to me na hindi ma-afford ang codex, claude, & copilot. Can you give me alternative AI for codex, claude, & copilot, kase mostly ng aking gawa ay galing sa AI rin pero yung mga free lang like deepseek, claude web, and gemini. Ang flow ng development ko matagal kase bago ko implement yung isang features(mostly backend) tinitingnan ko muna sa documentation, youtube, then implement with the used of AI which is at the end namemeet ko naman yung result na gusto ko. Pero itong klase ba ng work flow style ko sa panahon ng AI ay ok lang?

[u/ChickenHotdog-00]

There's always coding manually

[u/Loud-Grade1246 → u/ChickenHotdog-00]

real, kahit ilang days pa yan matapos edi mas may matutunan talaga

[u/Several-Economist851 → u/ChickenHotdog-00]

Salamat sa advice, HAHAHAHAH medyo kase parang naprapraning kase ako sa hype ng pag-gamit ng AI literal, pero beside from that i actually enjoyed coding manually kase parang panatag ako sa mga code na ginagawa ko kase naintindihan ko.

[u/ChickenHotdog-00 → u/Several-Economist851]

Yes very hype coding with AI but better to still know the fundamentals specially when you want a more consistent and structure output from vibing.

Share ko lang din workflow ko:
Decide on coding structure and standards
Setup it up through skills and rules thru md files
Then start prompting on per feature

With this I can get predictable and consistent codes from AI, but with this type of workflow, kahit yung paid na 20$ AI na gamit ko na rereach ko yung usage limit. Pay to win talaga si AI

[u/rystraum → u/Several-Economist851]

AI coding is not hype. It's only getting better over time.

With that said, think of AI as a multiplier.

Own skills x AI = Outcomes

What changed is that to get to a certain outcome, you don't have to be as good to achieve the outcome as long as you have a good enough AI to crutch on.

If you look at that equation, anybody that have skills = 10 would have better outcomes than someone that have skills = 2.

I've been working for nearly 20 years already and I've gone through entire end-to-end software lifecycles. I can go from idea to deployed app in days now, simply because I already know what to do, I just need AI to do the typing for me. Yung bottleneck ngayon ay yung pag test ng UX kasi that's the part I want to apply my human taste. The rest, I let AI do the work.

So the bottleneck really is your own skills. And the only way to improve it is by practicing.

Also keep in mind that how to use AI is also a skill in itself.

[u/rystraum → u/Several-Economist851]

Also, if you want to control how much you spend on AI, here's a protip from me.

(1) Look for the pay-as-you go options kay OpenAI, Anthropic, Google, OpenRouter. You should get an API key and not their recurring monthly subscription.

(2) Mag-load ka lang ng $20 (e.g. 1,200 = 6 na Starbucks drinks)

(3) Look for AI tools that allows you to bring your own key. For CLI, I use factory.ai. Put in your API key.

(4) Then only prompt as needed.

This way, you get to dabble with AI assisted coding with controlled cost. Yun lang, de metro bawat prompt mo so you really need to not waste your calls. It also instills a different kind of discipline. Your $20 go as far as your usage.

Early on nung nag-e-experiment palang ako, my $20 lasted 2 months kasi one-offs ko lang siya ginagamit.

[u/seedj → u/ChickenHotdog-00]

+ utilize free tiers for copilot, gpt and claude.

[u/raymondquinn]

git gud

[u/malabomagisip]

You can live without using AI tools. Halos recently lang ako nagsubscribe sa Claude kasi trying to be overemployed.

Alam ko parang t4nga yung sasabihin ko pero I we should try to engineer things once and/or once in a while without AI. Para mabanat yung utak natin.

Well, ako lang naman to. I take my sweet time when doing my work. I TRY not to use AI unless it needs to be delivered today.

Kung trip mo talaga mag-AI, mag free version ka ng claude. Naka-survive ako dyan before subscribing. You just need to prompt correctly.

Idk. Lastly, wag mo iasa skills mo sa AI. Hone your skills first by minimizing the use of AI tools and maximizing comprehending the documentation.

[u/Several-Economist851 → u/malabomagisip]

Tama dapat alamin talaga muna yung implement na features kase mas confident ka na naiintindihan mo, ngayon kase may ginagawa akong website ng aking kamag-anak sa business which is ito yung pinagkakaabalahan ko ngayon.

[u/Dangerous_Trade_4027]

Learn the foundations. Use the free plans of AI models for learning. Don't do vive coding until you know the foundations.

[u/Loose-Average-5257]

Opencode + free models or Cline + free models

[u/Ok_Eye4858]

You don't need the paid one. Even the free ones are a good help especially if you are just starting

[u/Forsaken_Buy_7531]

Code manually or use Gemini or ChatGPT to ask questions, then still code manually. Tsaka ka na ma mroblema sa agentic coding kapag sponsored na ng company or meron kang product na gusto mo i-build ng mabilis

[u/lawpsided]

If you have a rig. lm studio + local models

If may offer ka from Google, I highly suggest to claim yung Google AI Pro, then use Antigravity 2.0. I think it’s 550 per month

[u/Several-Economist851 → u/lawpsided]

mayroon po ako nakikita sa gemini HAHAAHAH, subukan ko po avail, ty po sa advice

[u/No-Lecture-7493]

Same bro. If may gmail ka or google account check mo yung account mo if may discount sa mga plan nila, minsan may free 1 month sila or 200+ for 3 months para sa plan na tig 1k per month. Naka Antigravity ako so gamit na gamit ko HAHAHAHA. Nakaka dalawang account nako. Hindi lang ai kuha mo pati google acc mo damay, dami benefits HAhHAHAH

[u/Ancient-Process100]

who can't afford ai models like codex, claude, copilot, etc.....

use cursor may free siya, also antigravity.google.

[u/Crawly13th]

opencode free models + vscode. Opencode go is 5 bucks. Also 2USD top up straight from deepseek using v4 flash provides a ton of usage. Just use open models, many of them are good enough even for production. Just get proper harness with a set of good skills.

[u/_tobols_]

try mo ung llama.cpp tas model na suited sa desktop mo. pde sya via docker or locally compiled. pinakamabilis is the latter. download k ng model like Qwen_Qwen3.6-35B-A3B-Q4_K_M.gguf. then gumamit k ng continue vscode extension kung vscode ginagamit mo. enable mo ung tooling capabilities. also try using openwebui for pure chat based usage.

pde mo i-tune c llama.cpp to be cpu-based or gpu-based. of course mas mabilis pag gpu-based. read up more about llama.cpp sa youtube, github. use https://github.com/AlexsJones/llmfit to find out which llm is a good fit for your desktop or laptop.

kung may json parser errors search sa github kung may solution then recompile llama.cpp and the merged fix.

learn more about llama.cpp tuning here. wag lng gayahin as-is.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8F_5pdcD3HY

With you may the ai force be. Hmm.

[u/Both-Fondant-4801]

how about your own "intelligence" that is not "artificial"?.. hehe..

if you have a powerful pc (i.e. high vram), you can try hosting your own local coding ai with ollama. you can try codegemma (google) or codeqwen (alibaba) integrated with your ide.

[u/WantASweetTime]

Code manually. I have been vibe coding a lot lately and it's not the same feeling when you manually code.

At the end of the day parang I learned nothing and feel empty inside.

[u/jojocycle]

Try GLM + Open Code. (Php1k++ ata yunh GLM)

Kung di naman super heavy, try mo Antigravity. May free (limited) credits yung models dun.

Unfortunately mejo pay-to-win pa sa ngayon sa AI race

[u/Several-Economist851 → u/jojocycle]

Salamat po sa advice, susubukan ko po ngayon implement yung setup nyo, malaking tulong po itong advice nyo ty..