Aider
AI pair programmer that lives in your terminal and git repo.
AI pair programmer that lives in your terminal and git repo.
Aider is AI pair programmer that lives in your terminal and git repo. Free to use.
About Aider
Aider is an open-source AI coding assistant that runs in the terminal and pairs with Git. It maintains a map of the user's repository, edits files in place, and after each change creates a commit with a sensible message, so the user can review diffs and roll back at will. Aider works with many models including GPT-4o, Claude Sonnet, DeepSeek, Gemini and local models, and has been one of the top-ranked tools on benchmarks like SWE-Bench. Features include voice coding, image input, repo-map context selection, an architect-and-editor multi-model mode for harder tasks, lint and test integration, and support for browsing arbitrary web pages as context. Aider is popular with terminal-loving developers who want a transparent, scriptable agent rather than a GUI-driven IDE, and is fully free under an Apache license.
Aider pros and cons
Hand-derived from the catalog data, strengths and trade-offs to weigh before signing up.
- Completely free to use, no paid tier required
- Includes an autonomous AI agent for multi-step tasks
- CLI workflow
- Git-aware commits
- Repo map
- Competition is strong in this space, see Claude Code and OpenCode for comparison
1 plan from Aider
Pulled from Aider’s public pricing page. Prices may change, verify on the vendor’s site before purchasing.
Free (Open Source)
Free AI pair programmer
- Open source on GitHub
- Use your own LLM API key
- Terminal-based
- Works with Git
Aider vs Coding Agents
Side-by-side with the top 3 other coding agents in this category.
| Picked from the top tools in coding agents | AI pair programmer that lives in your terminal and git repo. | Anthropic's agentic coding tool that reads your codebase and ships changes from the terminal. | Open-source coding agent for the terminal, IDE, desktop, and browser, bring your own model. | Open-source autonomous coding agent for VS Code. |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| STARTS AT | Free | $20/mo (via Claude Pro) | Free (open source); usage-based hosted | Free |
| PRICING | Free | Paid | Freemium | Free |
| AI AGENT | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes |
| EDITOR'S PICK | No | No | No | No |
| KEY FEATURES | CLI workflow, Git-aware commits, Repo map | Reads your whole codebase, Writes, edits & runs code, Autonomous git commits | Open source (self-hostable), Terminal, IDE, desktop & browser, Bring your own model & API key | Open source, VS Code extension, Plan/Act modes |
| BEST FOR | Repo-aware coding, Refactoring, Git workflows | Large multi-file codebase changes, Autonomous refactors & migrations, Test-and-fix loops | Agentic coding across the codebase, Terminal-native workflows, Self-hosted / private coding agents | Codebase refactoring, Bug fixing, Feature work |
| WORKS WITH | #cli#open-source#pair-programming | #coding#agent#cli#terminal | #coding#agent#open-source#cli | #agent#vs-code#open-source |
Aider, frequently asked questions
What is Aider?
Is Aider free?
Does Aider include an AI agent?
What are the key features of Aider?
What can Aider be used for?
What are the best alternatives to Aider?
Is Aider better than Claude Code?
What are the pros and cons of Aider?
Related tools
Anthropic's agentic coding tool that reads your codebase and ships changes from the terminal.
Open-source coding agent for the terminal, IDE, desktop, and browser, bring your own model.
Open-source autonomous coding agent for VS Code.
Build and deploy apps from a prompt inside Replit.