AidevsPearAI
Generated from the two spec rows. Green marks the better value where a spec has a clear direction. Everything else is just different.
Aide
CodeStory · AI-native IDE
#275OSS
Panel
3.01 spec wins
- Reliability
- 3.0
- Usefulness
- 3.0
- Cost
- 4.3
- Longevity
- 1.7
“An IDE built around a proactive agent, now proactively doing nothing.”
PearAI
PearAI · AI-native IDE
#254OSSMCP
Panel
4.24 spec wins
- Reliability
- 3.7
- Usefulness
- 4.3
- Cost
- 5.5
- Longevity
- 3.2
“A fork of VS Code shipping a fork of Continue and a fork of Roo Code, so every bug has three upstreams to blame.”
Spec by spec
| Spec | Aide | PearAI |
|---|---|---|
| Architecture | ||
| Category | AI-native IDE | AI-native IDE |
| Runs | local | local |
| Platforms | macos, linux, windows | macos, windows, linux |
| Context window | not documented | not documented |
| Protocols | ||
| MCP client | No | Yes |
| MCP server | No | No |
| Capabilities | ||
| Runs terminal commands | Yes | Yes |
| Multi-file edits | Yes | Yes |
| Git operations | No | No |
| Browser control | No | Yes |
| Sandboxed execution | No | No |
| Multi-agent orchestration | No | Yes |
| Headless / CI mode | No | No |
| Models | ||
| Backbone | Claude, GPT | Claude, GPT, Gemini |
| Bring your own model | Yes | Yes |
| Local models | No | Yes |
| Cost | ||
| Pricing model | byok | mixed |
| Starts at | n/a | $15/mo |
| Free tier | Yes | Yes |
| Bring your own key | Yes | Yes |
| Openness | ||
| Open source | Yes | Yes |
| License | AGPL-3.0 | MIT (pearai-app), Apache-2.0 (Pear OSS components) |
| GitHub stars | 2,192 | 713 |
Which one would each critic pick
| Critic | Aide | PearAI | Pick |
|---|---|---|---|
| El Juez | — | — | not enough reviews |
| El Amigo | 3.0 | 4.5 | PearAI — Skip the wrapper and run Cline or Kilo Code in stock VS Code; you get everything PearAI bundles with an editor that still updates. |
| El Crítico | 2.8 | 3.8 | PearAI — The editor repository's last release is from May 2025 and the docs site is down, so a new user installs a stale VS Code fork with no documentation to fall back on. |
| El Profesor | 3.3 | 4.3 | PearAI — Composition rather than construction: a fork of an editor bundling a fork of a chat tool and a fork of a fork of an agent, with no documented property of its own beyond the router. |
| La Inversora | 2.8 | 3.5 | PearAI — A $15 subscription on a bundle of other people's open-source tools has no moat and no acquirer, so the likely path is a quiet pivot. |
| La Jefa | 2.5 | 3.8 | PearAI — Sixty seats is $900 a month for a router, with no SSO or audit log, on an editor baseline I cannot patch; not yet. |
| El Hacker | 3.8 | 5.3 | PearAI — MIT and Apache-2.0, BYOK and local models work, and every part is a fork of something I could run upstream, so PearAI adds a stale editor and a router I do not need. |
Picks are derived from each critic's own scores. Humans vote on matchups on the duels page.