Trae is ByteDance's AI-native integrated development environment, first released in January 2025 with a China build following that March. It isn't a completion plugin bolted onto an editor — AI chat, code generation and project context sit in the IDE's main flow.
Two Shapes, Pick by Habit
Trae ships as a standalone client (macOS, Windows, Linux) and as a plugin for editors you already use. Take the client for the full experience; install the plugin if your VS Code or JetBrains setup is already tuned and you don't want to move house.
MarsCode, ByteDance's earlier assistant, now lives inside the Trae brand as that plugin form. If you used MarsCode before, treat it as the earlier name of the same product line.
The China and International Builds Are Separate
- China: trae.cn, Chinese interface, directly reachable from mainland networks.
- International: trae.ai, for overseas accounts.
Available models, plans and quotas differ between them. Decide which side you're on before creating an account — switching usually means signing in again and reconfiguring.
Where It Fits
Writing routine business code, reading an unfamiliar repository, refactoring and backfilling tests are where an AI IDE earns its keep. For teams inside China, Trae's practical advantage isn't the feature list — it's not paying a daily tax on network access, which matters more than one extra model option.
Conversely, if your workflow already leans on Cursor's agent workspace or one specific model, count the migration cost separately rather than asking only whether completion works.
Pricing and Use
The client includes a free tier; paid plans, model quotas and enterprise options follow the current official pages. As a closed-source product, what gets uploaded and how it is processed depends on the official privacy statement — pilot it on non-sensitive repositories first.