Alternatives to Aider
AI pair programming in a terminal, working directly on your git repository and committing as it goes. The listings below can replace it for an important use case. Each note says what changes if you switch.
The original
Aider
AI pair programming in a terminal, working directly on your git repository and committing as it goes.
Replacements
Listings that take over the same core job as Aider.
Claude Code
Agentic coding tool that reads a codebase, edits files and runs commands.
Claude Code is a closed source agent that needs a paid Claude plan or API credits, and it runs in the terminal, IDEs, desktop and web.
OpenCode
Work with an AI coding assistant from your terminal.
OpenCode is an MIT licensed terminal coding assistant that supports multiple model providers, with model access and provider charges kept separate from the client.
Crush
Terminal coding agent that works with whichever large language model you point it at.
Crush is an MIT licensed terminal agent that talks to any OpenAI- or Anthropic-compatible API, lets you switch models mid-session and pulls context from language servers.
Goose
Run an extensible AI assistant on your desktop or in a terminal.
Goose is an Apache-2.0 assistant for desktop or terminal that connects model providers to tools through MCP extensions, rather than focusing on git commits.
Kilo Code
An open-source AI coding agent for VS Code, JetBrains, the terminal and the cloud.
Kilo Code moves the agent into VS Code, JetBrains, a CLI and the cloud under MIT, offering model usage at cost, though it was recently acquired by Anaconda.
Open Interpreter
A command-line coding agent built to work with open language models such as Kimi and GLM.
Open Interpreter is a command-line coding agent built around open-weight models such as Kimi and GLM, but it is not open source and has changed direction over time.
Also worth comparing
These listings name Aider as their own alternative, so the relationship runs both ways.
Twinny
An open-source AI coding assistant for VS Code that works with local or hosted models.
Aider moves from a VS Code extension to terminal pair programming that commits every change to git, with local model support.
Similar software
Related functionality, not a direct replacement.
Ollama
The simplest way to pull down an open language model and run it on your own machine, from one command or a desktop app.
llama.cpp
The C++ engine most local AI apps are built on, running language models on ordinary hardware.
LM Studio
A polished desktop app for downloading, running and chatting with local language models, with an OpenAI-compatible server built in.
LocalAI
Serve language, image and speech models on your own hardware.
LLM
A command-line tool and Python library for prompting remote and locally installed language models.
