Is the AI coding tools market growing or shrinking?
Miles FosterOwner and tester, RankDude
The answer▼ Shrinkingbut visits are up 4.2% over the last six months
- Visits, year on year, without OpenAI Codex
- -5.6%
- Visits, last six months
- +4.2%
- Name searches vs October 2025
- -0.1%
Every month I add up the Google visits to the 220 AI coding tools sites I track (DataForSEO estimates) and how often people in the US search for them by name (Google Ads). In October 2026 they got about 510 million visits. Much of the year’s change is one site, OpenAI Codex; without it, visits are down 6% on a year ago.
The total hides very different stories: one site grew 6037% in a year while another lost 93% of its visits. See who grew and who shrank, the visits month by month and the name searches, plus what I expect for November 2026.
AI coding tools market demand: key numbers, October 2026
Four numbers for October 2026. Visits mean visits from Google search to the 220 tracked sites. Tap one for the detail below.
- Visits from Google510Mvisits+15% vs a year ago
- Name searches, US35Msearches-0.1% vs October 2025
- Top five sites94.4%of visitsfastest grower: OpenCode
- Expected in November503Mvisitslikely 463M to 543M
- The AI coding tools market is shrinking as of October 2026, but visits are up 4.2% over the last six months.
- The 220 AI coding tools sites RankDude tracks got 510,485,260 visits from Google search in October 2026, 15% more visits than in October 2025, or 6% fewer without OpenAI Codex.
- People in the US searched Google for these sites by name 35,413,260 times in September 2026, about the same as in October 2025.
- The five most-visited AI coding tools sites get 94.4% of all visits.
- Fastest-growing AI coding tools site over the year: OpenCode, +6037% (6.9K to 426K visits a month).
- Steepest fall over the year: v0 by Vercel, -93% (60.4K to 4.3K visits a month).
- Forecast for November 2026: about 503M visits, likely between 463M and 543M.
Source: DataForSEO visit estimates and Google Ads search data, published 2 November 2026 by RankDude.
1.Are more people visiting AI coding tools sites than a year ago?
Up 15% on a year ago; up 4% on September 2026
Only because of OpenAI Codex. The 220 tracked AI coding tools sites got 510,485,260 visits from Google search in October 2026. That is 15% more visits than in October 2025, or 6% fewer without OpenAI Codex, and 4% more visits than in September 2026.
October 2026 is the highest month of the last two years. In the US, visits were 48,423,067, up 78% on a year ago.
WorldVisits a month to AI coding tools sites, worldwide, two years
Source: DataForSEO, Google search visits, all tracked sites.
Worldwide, this month
510M
+15.3% on a year ago
United States, this month
48M
+77.5% on a year ago
Two-year high
510M
October 2026
US share of visits
9.5%
of worldwide visits
Miles explains
More visits than a year ago means new people are still finding AI coding tools sites through Google. Most of that growth is one site, OpenAI Codex; without it, visits are down 6% on a year ago.
2.Are people searching for AI coding tools sites by name?
About level with October 2025 (-0.1%); 35M name searches a month in the US
About as many as before. People in the US searched Google for the names of the counted AI coding tools sites 35,413,260 times in September 2026, about the same as in October 2025. Someone who searches a site’s name already knows it, so this is the clearest sign of people coming back on purpose.
USName searches a month for AI coding tools sites, US
Source: Google Ads via DataForSEO, to September 2026.
USMost searched AI coding tools sites by name, searches a month
Canva30M a month
OpenAI Codex1.0M a month
Squarespace673K a month
Wix550K a month
Softr450K a month
Base44368K a month
Miles explains
Name searches are level, so the regular users are still there.
3.Which AI coding tools sites grew, and which shrank?
The five most-visited sites hold 94.4% of all visits; the ten most-visited hold 96.8%
The five most-visited AI coding tools sites get 94.4% of all visits, so one of them winning or losing a big Google ranking moves the whole total. Fastest grower over the year: OpenCode, from 6,940 to 425,930 visits (+6037%). Steepest fall: v0 by Vercel, from 60,422 to 4,265 visits (-93%).
Growing fastest, year on year
Falling fastest, year on year
v0 by Vercel4.3K visits-93%
Zarla5.8K visits-91%
Budibase6.4K visits-86%
Kaedim2.7K visits-85%
Same4.4K visits-81%
Source: DataForSEO. Sites with 5,000+ visits a year ago.