Best Coding Chatbots that Help You Code

In the year 2023, you have likely become familiar with chatbots. From customer service chatbots to chatbots that can write complete stories based on a single prompt, our understanding of AI bots has rapidly expanded, and AI chatbots have gained international popularity. But did you know that there are chatbots that can help you code?

Coding chatbots have the ability to help you write and debug code, assisting in programming and software development. They can streamline your code-writing process or help find key errors preventing your code from working properly. The consensus is that the bots are useful, but you should be wary of which coding chatbot you choose to assist with your coding. Even Google warns that its coding chatbot could be wrong at times.

Are you looking for a great coding chatbot to help you with coding? We’ll discuss the best coding chatbots to help write and debug your code and the benefits of using a coding chatbot to assist with your programming work.

Criteria for the Best Coding Chatbots

As we mentioned, coding chatbots are not perfect, but some bots are better than others. To assemble our list of the top coding chatbots, we used some criteria to separate the best from the rest. We decided to focus on bots with user-friendly interfaces, that are accurate and reliable, offer many programming languages and frameworks, offer integrations with popular coding platforms, and support different coding tasks and challenges.

These criteria are important because these bots are easy to use, work for multiple uses, and provide utility. If you want to use a chatbot that isn’t on our list, you should prioritize similar features. Let’s discuss them in further detail:

User-friendly Interface

A clean, simple interface allows most people to access and use the chatbot without confusion. The best coding chatbots will have an interface that is intuitive and doesn’t have a huge learning curve.

Accuracy and Reliability

While all AI chatbots make mistakes occasionally, you don’t want the bot that is supposed to be helping you to ruin your code. The best bots should have a reputation for reliability.

Availability of Programming Languages and Frameworks

Many programmers work in more than one coding language, and the best bots should work for multiple programming languages and frameworks for ease of use.

Integration with Popular Coding Platforms

Swapping back and forth between screens only slows down the coding process. Using an AI bot to help code is supposed to streamline the process. We think the best bots for coding integrate into coding platforms for this reason.

Support for Different Coding Tasks and Challenges

Like our criteria of available programming languages, the bot should have a diverse ability to perform tasks and challenges to help with coding problems and debugging.

Top Coding Chatbots for Helping to Code

Now that we’ve covered our criteria for the best coding chatbots, let’s explore each of our top bots and why their features and capabilities work well to help you code.

ChatGPT

ChatGPT is a free AI chatbot made by OpenAI. It’s important to note that while ChatGPT can help you with coding, it is not exclusively an AI chatbot for coding. In fact, ChatGPT has many uses. However, it can also be used for coding and debugging. The AI knows most programming languages, including popular coding languages like C#, Python, Java, PHP, and more. ChatGPT can also be integrated into platforms with API access.

ChatGPT has its limitations, just like any AI chatbot. When using ChatGPT for coding, it’s important to understand how chatbot coding should work.

ChatGPT works best with specific code-writing or debugging requests, writing example code, and answering questions about coding.

New Bing

New Bing, also known as Bing Chat, is an interactive AI chat search engine run by Microsoft that is free to use. Bing is now a collaboration with Open AI and uses GPT-4, allowing the search engine to have similar capabilities to Open AI’s bot, ChatGPT. Because of this partnership, Bing can help you with coding and offers the same languages as ChatGPT, including C#, Python, Java, PHP, and more.

Users of Bing’s new AI have noticed that the GPT-4 system allows Bing to code more advanced than other coding chatbots. It follows instructions well, and its user interface is simple and easy to use. From simple fixes to solving problems, the New Bing AI works well as a coding assistant.

YouChat

YouChat is a free AI chatbot that also offers a chatbot specifically for coding, known as YouCode. The platform presents YouCode as an option for programmers who want to expedite their coding process from research to writing code. YouCode can help with both aspects, allowing access to resources like GitHub and StackOverflow while using AI to write your code.

YouCode can be added to Chrome for easier searching and help generate code in Python, Javascript, Go, Perl, PHP, Ruby, Swift, Typescript, and more. Users of YouCode can simultaneously find answers to their questions, example code, and AI-generated code.

Google Bard

Like ChatGPT, Google Bard is a multi-use AI bot and does not exclusively perform coding functions. However, Bard can also help you with coding and debugging, as well as explaining code. The addition of coding to Bard is a recent development, allowing the program to optimize code, make it more efficient, and find errors in code.

According to Google, Bard can code in over 20 programming languages, “including C++, Go, Java, Javascript, Python, and Typescript.” The chatbot occasionally provides inaccurate information, which Google acknowledges, but Bard does pretty well with specific instructions. Overall, Bard is a great tool to help programmers and software developers complete their work quickly and accurately.

Replit

Replit offers an IDE, or integrated development environment, that offers AI assistance for coding and making code more efficient. Replit’s AI Assistance bot is known as Ghostwriter and is an optional feature when using Replit, which allows you to code on your own or ask Ghostwriter to write code from prompts to fill in the blanks. In addition, Ghostwriter can also identify problems in code and suggest fixes.

The tool seems like a good fit for programmers and developers who want to code and use AI simultaneously and don’t care about using a new environment to code in. Replit says that Ghostwriter can write, interpret, and debug code for 50+ languages.

Tabnine

Tabnine is another coding AI assistant that can help programmers make their code more efficient and faster. And Tabnine can autocomplete code as you write it to make your coding experience faster, in addition to generating and suggesting code to use. Tabnine can be used with various programs like Sublime, Rider, Neovim, Eclipse, Android Studio, and Visual Studio Code.

The program supports many languages, libraries, and frameworks, including C++, C#, Go, Java, Ruby, CSS, Python, HTML, Sass, and more.

AskCodi

AskCodi is a free coding assistant that uses AI to save time and make the workflow of programmers more efficient. Unlike other AI coding chatbots, AskCodi will review your code and suggest better options to make your code more efficient and correct.

Currently, AskCodi can be used with Visual Studio Code, Sublime, and JetBrains and supports most popular languages and frameworks.

Benefits of Using a Coding Chatbot

There are many benefits to using a coding chatbot to assist you with your programming projects, but two benefits stand out above the rest.

First, using a bot can help you work through challenges and generate different perspectives when you are stuck. Programmers typically do this with another person, be it an acquaintance or a coworker, but sending your code to another person to review can take time. Instead, using a chatbot when you are stuck with your code will streamline this process and provide answers at the click of a button.

Secondly, a coding chatbot can help make coding faster, allowing programmers to write more code in the same time and increase their output. Most good coding chatbots can write generic functions and cut the fat of a programmer’s workload. Efficiency is a huge factor when programming, as projects can take many hours—saving time results in producing more code as a programmer, which can then benefit you or your company in several ways.

These benefits and others can help companies and individuals to:

• Increase sales
• Save on costs
• Avoid embarrassing errors
• Improve customer experiences
• Modernize programs
• Come up with new ideas

Conclusion

To conclude, the best available chatbots on the market are capable of being used as coding assistants that make programmers more efficient. Those who wish to learn to code or who are experienced with code can use coding chatbots to answer questions, solve issues, and generate code to fill in gaps in their work. They can collaborate with the chatbot instead of relying on others who may be busy with their own tasks and find errors in their code that they may not have noticed on their own.

The robust capabilities of coding bots are only expected to improve as the artificial intelligence behind these programs gains experience with coding and knowledge of best coding practices. Luckily, many good options for coding chatbots that help you code are available. Whether you are a brand-new programmer or an experienced software developer, you can use an AI chatbot for coding to improve your coding experience.