AiderDeskvsGoogle Antigravity
Generated from the two spec rows. Green marks the better value where a spec has a clear direction. Everything else is just different.
AiderDesk
Hotovo · AI-native IDE
#42OSSMCP
Panel
6.83 spec wins
- Reliability
- 6.7
- Usefulness
- 7.0
- Cost
- 7.8
- Longevity
- 5.7
“It began as a graphical front end for a terminal program and now ships a headless mode, which closes the circle nicely.”
Google Antigravity
Google · AI-native IDE
#68MCP
Panel
6.03 spec wins
- Reliability
- 5.3
- Usefulness
- 6.7
- Cost
- 6.2
- Longevity
- 5.8
“Google's own IDE ships Claude and gpt-oss next to Gemini, the most honest model review Google has ever published.”
Spec by spec
| Spec | AiderDesk | Google Antigravity |
|---|---|---|
| Architecture | ||
| Category | AI-native IDE | AI-native IDE |
| Runs | local | local |
| Platforms | macos, linux, windows, web | macos, linux, windows |
| Context window | not documented | not documented |
| Protocols | ||
| MCP client | Yes | Yes |
| MCP server | Yes | No |
| Capabilities | ||
| Runs terminal commands | Yes | Yes |
| Multi-file edits | Yes | Yes |
| Git operations | Yes | Yes |
| Browser control | No | YesA first-party browser subagent drives Chrome from a separate profile with allowlist/denylist controls (https://antigravity.google/docs/ide/browser/); IDE-side only, not in the agy CLI. |
| Sandboxed execution | NoDocker is documented as a way to run AiderDesk itself; task isolation is done with git worktrees, not containers. | YesOS-level isolation rather than containers: "no virtual machines or Docker images to manage" - Linux uses kernel namespaces to isolate the filesystem, hide host processes and cut networking; macOS uses sandbox-exec with Seatbelt (SBPL) profiles. |
| Multi-agent orchestration | Yes | Yes |
| Headless / CI mode | YesThrough an npm headless mode and the REST API. | Yes |
| Models | ||
| Backbone | OpenAI, Anthropic, Gemini, DeepSeek, Groq, Mistral, Amazon Bedrock, Azure OpenAI, Cerebras, OpenRouter, LiteLLM, Ollama, LM Studio | Gemini 3.1 Pro, Gemini 3.8 Flash, Claude Sonnet 4.6, Claude Opus 4.6, gpt-oss-120b |
| Bring your own model | Yes | YesSetting `modelProvider: "gemini"` in ~/.gemini/antigravity-cli/settings.json plus a GEMINI_API_KEY runs the CLI on your own key and billing instead of a signed-in Google account, and a model selector picks between Gemini, Claude and gpt-oss models in the IDE. |
| Local models | Yes | YesGOOGLE_GEMINI_BASE_URL sends model requests to any Gemini-compatible endpoint, so a self-hosted shim works as a mechanism; no Ollama or LM Studio integration is documented. |
| Cost | ||
| Pricing model | byok | mixed |
| Starts at | $0/mo | $20/mo |
| Free tier | Yes | Yes |
| Bring your own key | Yes | Yes |
| Openness | ||
| Open source | Yes | No |
| License | Apache-2.0 | proprietary |
| GitHub stars | 1,448 | 2,446 |
Which one would each critic pick
| Critic | AiderDesk | Google Antigravity | Pick |
|---|---|---|---|
| El Juez | — | — | not enough reviews |
| El Amigo | 7.5 | 7.0 | AiderDesk — Pick it if you liked Aider but wanted to see the work; pick Aider itself if the terminal was never the part that bothered you. |
| El Crítico | 6.5 | 6.3 | AiderDesk — One vendor maintains subagents, agent profiles, a vector context engine, MCP in both directions, a REST API and thirty model providers, and the shell runs on your machine. |
| El Profesor | 6.5 | 6.3 | AiderDesk — Context is assembled by a vector index combined with a repository map, a defensible hybrid; no evaluation is published, and the docs defer rather than measure. |
| La Inversora | 5.8 | 7.3 | Google Antigravity — Google is bundling the IDE into Google AI Pro and Ultra subscriptions, distribution no startup on this board can match and a roadmap no buyer controls. |
| La Jefa | 6.3 | 5.3 | AiderDesk — Free for sixty, and the REST API means it can be scripted, but there is no SSO, no audit log, and the browser UI is something we would have to host ourselves. |
| El Hacker | 8.3 | 4.0 | AiderDesk — Apache-2.0, my keys, and a provider list that ends in Ollama and LM Studio, so the whole thing runs on the box under my desk. |
Picks are derived from each critic's own scores. Humans vote on matchups on the duels page.