I have been using many IDEs with many AI models which can code for you in the VS Code but which one I found the best for everything for backend, frontend or mobile app development.
There are following Model you may be seeing in your IDE:
- GPT 4.1
- GPT 4o
- Claude Sonnet 4
- Claude Sonnet 3.7
- Claude Sonnet 3.5
- Gemini 2.5 Pro
- o4-mini
GPT 4.1
This model is build by OpenAI, which is build by the data of internet till late 2023. Its maths and reasoning are excellent but its speed is slow. It can have context memory of 128k tokens only and It is excellent for coding but with small context memory.
If you want to build a full application just using the GPT 4.1, it’s not possible. If you want to build a function which can solve a problem, then this model is excellent for that.
GPT 4o
This model is also build by OpenAI, which is build by the data of internet till October 2023. Its math and reasoning is excellent. It is very fast not slow like GPT 4.1. It has also 128k token context window. It is also excellent for the coding with same use case like GPT 4.1 have. It is just faster than GPT 4.1.
Claude Sonnet 4
This is the model and the answer of the title question. It can build whole application from scratch no matter it is frontend, backend, full stack or mobile app.
It is build by Anthropic, it has build on data of internet till May 2025. It is excellent at maths and reasoning. It is fast and it has 200k tokens context window. It is excellent for coding, even you can build big applications/softwares through this model.
Claude Sonnet 3.7
This model is better than Claude Sonnet 3.5 but not as good as Claude Sonnet 4. It is build on the data of the internet till early 2024. It has context windows of 200k token, same as Claude Sonnet 4. It is fast and good at coding.
Claude Sonnet 3.5
This model is fast but not good as Claude Sonnet 3.7. It is biuld on the data of the internet till early 2023. It has context window of 200k tokens, same as Claude Sonnet 3.7 and 4. It is also good at coding but I won’t suggest you to use this model for coding.
Gemini 2.5 Pro
It is build by Google Deepmind. It is build on the data of the internet till July 2025. It is fast and excellent at maths and reasoning. It have huge context window of 1 million tokens. Its coding is also excellent but for me I find Claude Sonnet 4 best for coding.
o4 Mini
It is build by OpenAI and this model is build on the data of the internet till early 2024. Its reasoning and maths are good and this model is fast too. It has 128k token context window only. Its coding is between okay to good. In my opinion, this model should be only used to write small codes or small functions.
Final thoughts
Conclusion on these models will be, when you want to build something big which involves frontend, backend or big logic, use Claude Sonnet 4.
If you want to write small and complex function, use GPT 4.1.