Claude Code is quietly becoming the tool serious developers reach for. It's not flashy — it lives in your terminal, not a fancy UI — but it understands large codebases in a way that's almost eerie. Multi-file refactors, test generation, and bug hunting are where it shines.
The trade-off: it's pay-per-use through Anthropic's API, so costs can surprise you on big projects. And you need to be comfortable in a terminal. But if you're already a CLI person, this feels like a superpower.