If you're in, here's everything you need to start building this weekend. No excuses.
Use AI coding agents to speed up your build. These all have free tiers:
| Tool | What It Is | Free? | Best For |
|---|---|---|---|
| Google Antigravity | Agent-first IDE by Google, describe a task, AI agents plan, code, test, and iterate for you. Built on VS Code, powered by Gemini 3 Pro. Has a Mission Control "Agent Manager" to run multiple agents in parallel. Also supports Claude Sonnet 4.5 & GPT-OSS. Mac/Win/Linux. | 100% free (public preview) | Rapid prototyping, vibe coding, "describe and ship" style building |
| Claude Code | Terminal-based AI agent by Anthropic | Free tier available | Deep reasoning, multi-file edits |
| Free Claude Code | Check this awesome project https://github.com/Alishahryar1/free-claude-code | Free tier available | Deep reasoning, multi-file edits |
| Cursor | VS Code fork with built-in AI agent | Free tier | Full IDE experience, most popular among devs |
| Cline | Open-source AI coding agent (VS Code extension) | 100% free & open-source | Privacy-conscious devs, BYO API key |
| GitHub Copilot | AI pair programmer in your IDE | Free for students & open-source | Autocomplete + agent mode |
| Windsurf | AI-powered IDE (VS Code fork) | Free tier | Fast autocomplete + agent mode |
| Replit | Browser-based IDE + AI agent | Free tier | No setup needed, great for beginners |
| Google AI Studio + Gemini | Use Gemini models free in browser | Free | Quick prototyping, testing prompts |
💡 Pro tip: You don't have to pick one. Many devs use Cursor/Windsurf for the IDE and Claude Code for terminal tasks.
If you're building something with AI (chatbot, agent, tool), you'll need an API. These have generous free tiers:
| Provider | Free Tier | Best For |
|---|---|---|
| Google AI Studio (Gemini) | Free, no credit card, ~1M tokens/day | Best overall free API, multimodal |
| Groq | Free, 14,400 req/day, blazing fast (300+ tokens/sec) | Speed-critical apps, chatbots |
| OpenRouter | Free access to 30+ models via single API | Experimenting with different models |
| Hugging Face | Free inference on 200k+ open-source models | NLP, embeddings, niche models |
| Mistral AI | Free, ~1B tokens/month | High-volume, open-source models |
| Together AI | $25 free credits on signup | Llama models, multimodal |
| xAI (Grok) | $25 free credits on signup | Real-time data from X/Twitter |
| Cloudflare Workers AI | 10,000 neurons/day free | Edge AI, serverless |
| Anthropic (Claude) | ~$5 free credits after phone verification | Best reasoning, long context |
| OpenAI | ~$5 free credits on signup | GPT models, image gen |
💡 Pro tip: Sign up for ALL of them. Use Gemini for prototyping, Groq for speed, and OpenRouter to compare models, you can stack $200+ in free credits.
- GitHub, Push your code, keep it open-source if possible. Your GitHub profile = your portfolio.
- Create a new repo for each project
- Write a clean README with screenshots/demo link
- Use GitHub Pages for free static hosting
- Git basics:
git init→git add .→git commit -m "initial commit"→git push
💡 Pro tip: Name your repos well. ai-resume-builder > project1. Recruiters will see these.
Your project isn't "shipped" until it has a URL. These are all free for personal/hobby projects:
| Platform | Best For | Free Tier |
|---|---|---|
| Vercel | Next.js, React, frontend apps | Free for personal projects |
| Netlify | Static sites, JAMstack, frontend | Free tier with 300 credits/month |
| Cloudflare Pages | Static sites, edge apps | Free, unlimited bandwidth |
| Render | Full-stack apps, APIs, backends | Free for static sites + small services |
| Railway | Full-stack apps + databases | $5 free credit/month |
| GitHub Pages | Static sites, portfolios | Completely free |
| Replit | Quick deploys from browser IDE | Free tier available |
| Fly.io | Docker apps, global deployment | Free for small apps |
| Hugging Face Spaces | AI/ML demos (Gradio, Streamlit) | Free for public spaces |
| Streamlit Cloud | Python data apps | Free for public repos |
💡 Recommended flow:
- Frontend/static site → Vercel or Netlify (connect GitHub, auto-deploys on push)
- Full-stack app → Render or Railway
- AI demo/tool → Hugging Face Spaces or Streamlit Cloud
- Just need a landing page → GitHub Pages
After you ship, share it! Don't just build in silence:
| Where | Why |
|---|---|
| Twitter/X | Tag #buildinpublic, share screenshots + demo links |
| Reddit, r/SideProject, r/webdev, r/MachineLearning | Great for honest feedback |
| Hacker News, "Show HN" | Dev-heavy audience, great for technical projects |
| Product Hunt | Classic launch platform for polished products |
| Dev.to | Write a blog post about what you built |
| Indie Hackers | Share your building journey, get community support |
| Post about it, great for career visibility | |
| Peerlist | Developer-focused showcase platform |
| BetaList | If you want early-adopter signups |
| DevHunt | Made for developer tools specifically |
💡 Pro tip: Write a short Twitter/LinkedIn post every weekend when you ship. "Week 1/6 of #SudoShipIt, Built X. Here's the demo → [link]". Consistency > perfection.
If you have your own idea, that's perfect. Need inspiration? Here are some ideas that can be built in 2-3 hours:
AI Tools:
- AI-powered resume reviewer or roast (even funnier)
- AI flashcard generator from any topic
- Mood-based playlist recommender
Web Apps:
- Personal portfolio site with a twist
- Expense tracker with charts
- Habit tracker with streaks
- URL shortener with analytics
- Bookmark manager with auto-tags
Data / Analysis:
- Scrape and visualize trending GitHub repos
- Analyze your Spotify/Netflix data
- Visualize air quality or weather data for your city
- Compare LLM pricing across providers
Agents & Automation:
- A Telegram/Discord bot that does something useful
- An AI agent that summarizes your daily news
- Meeting notes summarizer from audio
- Anthropic Prompt Engineering Guide: docs.claude.com
- Hugging Face Course: Free NLP/ML course → huggingface.co/learn
- freeCodeCamp: Full-stack web dev, free → freecodecamp.org
- Vercel Templates: Starter templates to clone and modify → vercel.com/templates
- GitHub Awesome Lists: Curated repos for every topic → search
awesome-[topic]on GitHub
[ ] Pick a project idea (or come up with your own)
[ ] Set up your coding tool (Cursor / Claude Code / Cline / whatever)
[ ] Create a GitHub repo
[ ] Build for 2-3 hours
[ ] Deploy it (Vercel / Netlify / Render)
[ ] Write a README with demo link + screenshot
[ ] Share it with the group + post online
[ ] Celebrate 🎉, that's 1/6 done
Remember: Done > Perfect. Ship it. 🏂