Best AI tools for developers (technical) (2026)

The top 20 of 58 matching tools in the ShipRadar directory, for programmers building their own AI products. Updated Oct 14, 2026.

How this list is made: tools are pulled from ShipRadar's directory and ranked by traction on their source (GitHub stars, Hugging Face likes, Hacker News points, Product Hunt votes) plus freshness. Well-known tools are included as editor's picks. Read the methodology.

1. 1

   dsh-our-free-model

   A plugin for the DeepSeek Harness coding tool that gives free access to models like DeepSeek V4.1 Flash and Kimi K3, with no sign-up.

   🧠 For Developers · 14,068 GitHub stars · Visit ↗

2. 2

   Mini-AGI

   An experimental AI model that keeps learning, trained on a normal gaming graphics card.

   🧠 For Developers · 277 traction · Visit ↗

3. 3

   Jevman

   AI decision models playing Pac-Man. Pure fun.

   🧠 For Developers · 81 traction · Visit ↗

4. 4

   JevBench, a reproducible benchmark for typed decision models

   Tests for AI decision models. Researchers only.

   🧠 For Developers · 154 traction · Visit ↗

5. 5

   TinyAIArena watch AI agents battle it out

   Watch AI bots compete against each other in little games.

   🧠 For Developers · 120 traction · Visit ↗

6. 6

   Pelican-bicycle alternatives

   A playful gallery comparing how different AIs draw a pelican riding a bicycle. A popular informal test.

   🧠 For Developers · 133 traction · Visit ↗

7. 7

   CUA-S1

   A quick-reacting AI model built to use a computer like a person would.

   🧠 For Developers · 95 traction · Visit ↗

8. 8

   How Stale Is Your AI? Release age and training cutoff for 20 models

   A chart showing how up to date 20 popular AI models are, and when each one's knowledge stops.

   🧠 For Developers · 85 traction · Visit ↗

9. 9

   Training a model to identify AI web content from structure alone

   A research project that spots AI-written web pages from their layout alone.

   🧠 For Developers · 74 traction · Visit ↗

10. 10

    Jev Decision Index

    Scores and news about copies of Jev, an AI decision model. Researchers only.

    🧠 For Developers · 631 traction · Visit ↗

11. 11

    Open LLM Leaderboard

    A scoreboard that compares free AI models. Mostly useful to tech people.

    🧠 For Developers · 14,146 traction · Visit ↗

12. 12

    MTEB Leaderboard

    A scoreboard that compares AI search models. For programmers.

    🧠 For Developers · 7,729 traction · Visit ↗

13. 13

    awesome-jev

    A list of projects built on Jev, an AI model that makes yes/no-style decisions.

    🧠 For Developers · 2,317 GitHub stars · Visit ↗

14. 14

    Durable Actors

    Server building blocks for developers. Not really an AI tool for most people.

    🧠 For Developers · 53 traction · Visit ↗

15. 15

    The Ultra-Scale Playbook

    A deep technical guide to training huge AI models on big clusters of graphics chips.

    🧠 For Developers · 4,081 traction · Visit ↗

16. 16

    Doom or Bloom, map your AI worldview

    A quick quiz that shows where you land between 'AI will ruin everything' and 'AI will fix everything'.

    🧠 For Developers · 56 traction · Visit ↗

17. 17

    The Smol Training Playbook

    A guide from Hugging Face on how they build AI models. For engineers.

    🧠 For Developers · 3,329 traction · Visit ↗

18. 18

    Model Pulse

    Charts showing which AI models people download most on Hugging Face. For trend-watchers.

    🧠 For Developers · 205 traction · Visit ↗

19. 19

    OpenAI API

    Lets programmers put ChatGPT's technology into their own apps.

    🧠 For Developers · Editor's pick · Visit ↗

20. 20

    Hugging Face

    A huge library of free AI models and demos you can try in your browser. Mostly used by tech people.

    🧠 For Developers · Editor's pick · Visit ↗

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