StarCoder
StarCoder is a 15.5 billion parameter open source language model trained specifically for code generation across more than 80 programming languages, developed by the BigCode project. It remains freely downloadable under the BigCode OpenRAIL-M license, though newer open-weight coding models have since emerged.
Facts checked on against the sources listed at the end of this page.
- Pricing
- Open sourceFree plan: Yes, free to download and use, subject to accepting the OpenRAIL-M license terms
- Open source
- YesBigCode OpenRAIL-M
- GitHub stars
- 7,501
A good fit for
- Researchers and developers wanting a well-established open source code model to fine-tune or build on
- Self-hosted code generation use cases where an OpenRAIL-licensed model is acceptable
- Studying the history and development of open source code-generation models
Not a good fit for
- Teams needing the absolute latest coding capability, where newer open-weight coding models may perform better
- Use cases requiring a fully permissive license without any use-based restrictions, since OpenRAIL-M includes responsible-use terms
- Production systems needing very long context windows beyond StarCoder's 8,192 tokens
StarCoder pricing
StarCoder is free to download and use under the BigCode OpenRAIL-M license, which permits use, modification and redistribution subject to certain responsible-use restrictions.
Prices in USD, checked on 27 September 2026. Current prices on huggingface.co.
Main features
- Broad language coverage
- Trained on code from more than 80 programming languages.
- Open weights
- Freely downloadable from the Hugging Face Hub under the OpenRAIL-M license.
- Community ecosystem
- A large number of fine-tunes, adapters and demo spaces have been built on top of it.
- 8,192-token context window
- Supports moderate-length code context for its generation.
About StarCoder
StarCoder is a 15.5 billion parameter model trained on code from The Stack (v1.2), covering more than 80 programming languages, with an 8,192-token context window, developed by the BigCode project, a collaboration between Hugging Face and ServiceNow among others.
As an early prominent open source code model, it's been widely used as a base for fine-tuning and adaptation, with a large number of community adapter models, fine-tunes and demo spaces built on top of it.
It's distributed under the BigCode OpenRAIL-M license, a responsible-AI license that permits use, modification and redistribution subject to certain use-based restrictions, rather than a fully unrestricted open source license.
- Made by
- BigCode project
- Free plan
- Yes, free to download and use, subject to accepting the OpenRAIL-M license terms
- Available on
- Self-hosted (open weights), Hugging Face Hub, Various inference providers
StarCoder alternatives
Questions about StarCoder
Is StarCoder free?
Yes, it's free to download and use under the BigCode OpenRAIL-M license.
Who made StarCoder?
The BigCode project, a collaboration including Hugging Face and ServiceNow.
Is StarCoder still relevant?
It remains available and used within the open source community, though newer open-weight coding models offer improved capability.
Sources and links
Work on StarCoder? Claim this listing. Something wrong or out of date? Suggest a correction. Stats come from the public GitHub and npm APIs and update every day.