Devikavssmol developer
Generated from the two spec rows. Green marks the better value where a spec has a clear direction. Everything else is just different.
Devika
Stition AI · Autonomous SWE
#250OSS
Panel
3.65 spec wins
- Reliability
- 3.2
- Usefulness
- 3.5
- Cost
- 6.3
- Longevity
- 1.3
“Nineteen thousand stars and nothing since 2025, which is the open-source version of a standing ovation on the way out.”
smol developer
smol.ai · Autonomous SWE
#262OSS
Panel
3.60 spec wins
- Reliability
- 3.5
- Usefulness
- 3.2
- Cost
- 6.5
- Longevity
- 1.3
“It called itself a junior developer in 2023 and, unlike the rest of us, never once asked for a promotion.”
Spec by spec
| Spec | Devika | smol developer |
|---|---|---|
| Architecture | ||
| Category | Autonomous SWE | Autonomous SWE |
| Runs | local | local |
| Platforms | macos, linux, windows | macos, linux, windows |
| Context window | not documented | not documented |
| Protocols | ||
| MCP client | No | No |
| MCP server | No | No |
| Capabilities | ||
| Runs terminal commands | Yes | No |
| Multi-file edits | Yes | Yes |
| Git operations | No | No |
| Browser control | Yes | No |
| Sandboxed execution | No | No |
| Multi-agent orchestration | No | No |
| Headless / CI mode | No | No |
| Models | ||
| Backbone | Claude, GPT, Gemini, Mistral | GPT, Claude |
| Bring your own model | Yes | No |
| Local models | Yes | No |
| Cost | ||
| Pricing model | byok | byok |
| Starts at | n/a | n/a |
| Free tier | Yes | Yes |
| Bring your own key | Yes | Yes |
| Openness | ||
| Open source | Yes | Yes |
| License | MIT | MIT |
| GitHub stars | 19,556 | 12,186 |
Which one would each critic pick
| Critic | Devika | smol developer | Pick |
|---|---|---|---|
| El Juez | — | — | not enough reviews |
| El Amigo | 3.5 | 3.5 | no preference |
| El Crítico | 3.5 | 3.0 | Devika — The authors described it as early and experimental from the start, and nothing since has changed that label, which makes it the rare project whose warning aged accurately. |
| El Profesor | 3.5 | 4.5 | smol developer — The contribution was decomposition: a specification produces an explicit file-layout plan first, and only then is each file generated against that plan as shared context. |
| La Inversora | 3.5 | 3.3 | Devika — Stition AI built the most-forked answer to a funded competitor and never converted any of that attention into a company, which is the recurring story of that wave. |
| La Jefa | 3.0 | 2.8 | Devika — There is no supplier, no support and no unattended mode, so this is an engineer's side project rather than anything sixty people could be issued. |
| El Hacker | 4.5 | 4.8 | smol developer — MIT, and importable as smol_dev with an Agent Protocol interface alongside the command line, which was the right idea and is still the only reason to open it. |
Picks are derived from each critic's own scores. Humans vote on matchups on the duels page.