Trae, released by ByteDance, the company behind TikTok, in January 2025, forks VS Code into an AI-native editor offering inline completion, chat, and a SOLO Mode that autonomously scaffolds a full project from a natural-language description, writing the file structure, running commands, and previewing changes as it goes.
Its early competitive draw was notably generous free access to premium underlying models, including GPT-4o and Claude 3.5 Sonnet, at no cost on its Windows release, undercutting competitors that gate comparable model access behind a subscription. Paid tiers exist above the free plan for higher usage and faster processing.
Free access comes with a specific tradeoff worth knowing directly: Trae collects telemetry data shared with ByteDance affiliates, retains personal data for five years after an account closes, and has no opt-out or local-only mode. For a developer weighing free access to strong models against ByteDance's stated data practices, that tradeoff is worth evaluating directly rather than assuming it works like a typical Western competitor's privacy policy.
