99vsEfrit
Generated from the two spec rows. Green marks the better value where a spec has a clear direction. Everything else is just different.
99
ThePrimeagen · IDE extension
#219OSS
Panel
5.62 spec wins
- Reliability
- 4.8
- Usefulness
- 5.5
- Cost
- 7.5
- Longevity
- 4.7
“It ships for macOS and Linux only, which is one way to make sure Windows developers keep hand-coding.”
Efrit
Steve Yegge · IDE extension
#259OSS
Panel
5.52 spec wins
- Reliability
- 4.7
- Usefulness
- 5.8
- Cost
- 7.3
- Longevity
- 4.3
“Three entry points named efrit-chat, efrit-do and efrit-agent, because Emacs was never going to settle for one.”
Spec by spec
| Spec | 99 | Efrit |
|---|---|---|
| Architecture | ||
| Category | IDE extension | IDE extension |
| Runs | local | local |
| Platforms | macos, linux | macos, linux, windows |
| Context window | not documented | not documented |
| Protocols | ||
| MCP client | No | No |
| MCP server | No | No |
| Capabilities | ||
| Runs terminal commands | No | YesBoth shell_exec and eval_sexp are available, and the README warns that AI-generated code executes directly in your Emacs. |
| Multi-file edits | Yes | Yes |
| Git operations | No | YesRead-only version-control tools — status, diff, log and blame — are exposed to the model. |
| Browser control | No | No |
| Sandboxed execution | No | No |
| Multi-agent orchestration | No | No |
| Headless / CI mode | No | No |
| Models | ||
| Backbone | Claude Sonnet via OpenCode, Claude Code | Claude |
| Bring your own model | YesModel choice is delegated to the configured provider CLI; if no model is set the provider's default is used. | No |
| Local models | No | No |
| Cost | ||
| Pricing model | byok | byok |
| Starts at | n/a | $0/mo |
| Free tier | Yes | Yes |
| Bring your own key | Yes | Yes |
| Openness | ||
| Open source | Yes | Yes |
| License | unspecified | unspecified |
| GitHub stars | 4,744 | 455 |
Which one would each critic pick
| Critic | 99 | Efrit | Pick |
|---|---|---|---|
| El Juez | — | — | not enough reviews |
| El Amigo | 6.3 | 6.3 | no preference |
| El Crítico | 5.5 | 5.3 | 99 — It delegates every hard part to a provider CLI it does not control, and the README calls the project beta with an API that still changes. |
| El Profesor | 5.5 | 6.0 | Efrit — The version-control tools exposed to the model are read-only, status and diff and log and blame, which is a deliberate asymmetry between what may be inspected and what may be changed. |
| La Inversora | 5.0 | 5.8 | Efrit — One author, 454 stars, no company, and a hard binding to a single model vendor: the survival question here is not funding, it is whether one API keeps its shape. |
| La Jefa | 4.5 | 4.8 | Efrit — Nothing per seat and nothing to roll out: the sixty engineers who would use this are the four who already run Emacs, and no record survives of what any of them did. |
| El Hacker | 7.0 | 5.3 | 99 — Public source with no licence file, which is not the same as open source, and the whole config surface is a setup call in my plugin spec. |
Picks are derived from each critic's own scores. Humans vote on matchups on the duels page.