Overview
Tongyi Lingma is an AI programming assistant launched by Alibaba, integrated into VS Code and JetBrains IDEs, providing code completion, conversational programming, and code optimization capabilities. It is based on the Qwen large model and has excellent understanding of Chinese programming instructions, making it one of the easiest AI programming plugins for domestic developers to get started with.
**Important Renaming: Starting from 2026/5/20, Tongyi Lingma has officially undergone a brand upgrade to "Qoder CN"**, evolving from a single IDE plugin into a full-scenario AI agent product matrix covering coding, knowledge office, terminal operations, and mobile devices, with a domestic large model foundation and fully autonomous and controllable full chain. Old users can still access lingma.aliyun.com, but the new brand and product matrix are based on Qoder CN. The personal edition remains completely free, and a free basic version is also provided for enterprises.
**Key 2026 Upgrade**: Tongyi Lingma/Qoder CN has **fully integrated the Qwen3-Coder programming model** (Alibaba's Qwen series dedicated coding model, which underwent Agent RL reinforcement learning in the post-training phase, specifically optimizing multi-turn tool calls), and **offers unlimited free access to individual developers**—this is a rare "top-tier model for free" strategy among domestic AI programming assistants, significantly improving code generation speed and accuracy in real enterprise development scenarios, with Agentic Coding capabilities aligned with Claude Code and Cursor Agent mode.
Key Features
- Brand Upgrade to Qoder CN: Starting from 2026/5/20, expanded from a single IDE plugin to a full-scenario AI agent matrix covering coding/office/terminal/mobile, with a domestic large model foundation
- Intelligent Code Completion: Real-time multi-line code completion, understanding context to provide precise suggestions
- Conversational Programming: Describe requirements in Chinese, AI generates corresponding code
- Code Optimization: Analyze code and provide performance and readability optimization suggestions
- Unit Test Generation: Automatically generate unit tests for code
- Code Explanation: Select code and AI explains its logic and functionality
- Enterprise Knowledge Base: Enterprise version can access internal code repositories and documents
Use Cases
- Intelligent completion for daily code writing
- Code generation from Chinese programming instructions
- Code review and optimization suggestions
- Automatic unit test generation
- Learning and understanding code for beginners
Pros
- Completely free: All features of the personal edition at zero cost
- Good Chinese understanding: High accuracy for Chinese programming instructions
- IDE integration: Supports both VS Code and JetBrains
- Strong Java support: Deep accumulation in Alibaba's Java ecosystem
- Available domestically: Alibaba Cloud servers, fast speed
Pricing
Tongyi Lingma personal edition is completely free with unlimited usage. Enterprise standard edition is free (basic features). Enterprise professional edition is priced on demand (advanced features such as enterprise knowledge base, private deployment, etc.).
Summary
Tongyi Lingma (now renamed Qoder CN) is "an excellent free AI programming plugin in China"—free, Chinese-friendly, and supports mainstream IDEs. After the 2026 brand upgrade, its capabilities have expanded from code writing to office and terminal operations. For domestic developers, especially Java developers, it remains the best choice to improve programming efficiency at zero cost. Those seeking the ultimate AI programming experience can upgrade to Cursor.
Version History
- Brand Upgrade to Qoder CN (2026/05/20): Upgraded from a single IDE plugin to a full-scenario AI agent product matrix covering coding, knowledge office, terminal operations, and mobile devices, with a full-chain domestic large model foundation
- Tongyi Lingma + Qwen3 Coder (2026): Default integration of Qwen3 Coder flagship, supporting multi-model switching within IDE; deep linkage with Alibaba Cloud ecosystem; cumulative downloads rank first among domestic IDE plugins
- Tongyi Lingma 1.x (2023-2025): Alibaba Cloud's IDE AI programming assistant, benchmarking GitHub Copilot