AidervsZero
Generated from the two spec rows. Green marks the better value where a spec has a clear direction. Everything else is just different.
Aider
Aider AI (Paul Gauthier) · Terminal agent
#7OSS
Panel
7.11 spec wins
- Reliability
- 7.2
- Usefulness
- 6.8
- Cost
- 7.5
- Longevity
- 7.0
“Commits every change to git so you can see exactly which one broke the build.”
Zero
Gitlawb · Terminal agent
#6OSSMCP
Panel
7.03 spec wins
- Reliability
- 6.7
- Usefulness
- 7.0
- Cost
- 8.2
- Longevity
- 6.2
“It accepts image input in a terminal, a sentence that would have ended a career in 2019.”
Spec by spec
| Spec | Aider | Zero |
|---|---|---|
| Architecture | ||
| Category | Terminal agent | Terminal agent |
| Runs | local | local, sandbox |
| Platforms | macos, linux, windows | macos, linux, windows |
| Context window | not documented | not documented |
| Protocols | ||
| MCP client | No | Yes |
| MCP server | No | Yes |
| Capabilities | ||
| Runs terminal commands | Yes | Yes |
| Multi-file edits | Yes | Yes |
| Git operations | Yes | Yes |
| Browser control | YesThe /web command and URL detection drive a real Chromium through Playwright to render and read pages (--disable-playwright turns it off); the --browser flag is only aider's own Streamlit GUI. | YesBrowser and terminal control helpers ship with the npm and release builds; source builds need those helper binaries on PATH or configured in local-control settings. |
| Sandboxed execution | NoAider publishes a Docker image as an install option only; commands it runs are not sandboxed. | NoZero ships a native Linux sandbox helper using seccomp rather than Docker; source builds must build the `zero-linux-sandbox` helper separately. |
| Multi-agent orchestration | No | Yes |
| Headless / CI mode | Yes | Yes`zero exec` returns exit codes and has a documented GitHub Action recipe. |
| Models | ||
| Backbone | OpenAI, Anthropic, Gemini, DeepSeek, OpenRouter, Bedrock, Vertex AI, Azure, Groq, xAI, Ollama, LM Studio | OpenAI, Anthropic, Gemini, Groq, OpenRouter, DeepSeek, Mistral, xAI, Qwen, Kimi, GitHub Models, Fireworks, MiniMax, Ollama, LM Studio |
| Bring your own model | Yes | Yes |
| Local models | Yes | Yes |
| Cost | ||
| Pricing model | byok | byok |
| Starts at | $0/mo | $0/mo |
| Free tier | Yes | Yes |
| Bring your own key | Yes | Yes |
| Openness | ||
| Open source | Yes | Yes |
| License | Apache-2.0 | MIT |
| GitHub stars | 49,324 | 1,688 |
Which one would each critic pick
| Critic | Aider | Zero | Pick |
|---|---|---|---|
| El Juez | — | — | not enough reviews |
| El Amigo | 7.5 | 7.3 | Aider — Pick Aider if you want to see every diff and steer every step; pick Claude Code if you want the agent to find the files and run on its own. |
| El Crítico | 7.3 | 6.8 | Aider — Every edit is a real edit on your disk with no sandbox, and auto-commit is the one mitigation standing between a bad command and your afternoon. |
| El Profesor | 8.3 | 7.3 | Aider — The most legible architecture on the board, with a published harness; the SWE-bench numbers are from 2024 and should be read as history, not as a claim. |
| La Inversora | 5.3 | 5.5 | Zero — A permissively licensed terminal agent from a single publisher, in the most crowded category on this board, with nothing being sold at any point. |
| La Jefa | 5.5 | 6.8 | Zero — Nothing to license for sixty, and it is the rare tool that returns meaningful exit codes with a documented continuous integration recipe, so it can gate a build. |
| El Hacker | 9.0 | 8.5 | Aider — Python I can read, prompts in the repo, .aider.conf.yml for model and edit format, --model ollama/anything for an air-gapped box; MCP is the one gap. |
Picks are derived from each critic's own scores. Humans vote on matchups on the duels page.