EfritvsRoo Code
Generated from the two spec rows. Green marks the better value where a spec has a clear direction. Everything else is just different.
Efrit
Steve Yegge · IDE extension
#259OSS
Panel
5.50 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.”
Roo Code
Roo Code, Inc. (now Roomote) · IDE extension
#185OSSMCP
Panel
4.15 spec wins
- Reliability
- 4.3
- Usefulness
- 4.7
- Cost
- 5.5
- Longevity
- 2.0
“Shut down in May and archived, but the extension still runs, which is more than the paid Cloud tier can say.”
Spec by spec
| Spec | Efrit | Roo Code |
|---|---|---|
| Architecture | ||
| Category | IDE extension | IDE extension |
| Runs | local | local |
| Platforms | macos, linux, windows | macos, linux, windows |
| Context window | not documented | not documented |
| Protocols | ||
| MCP client | No | Yes |
| MCP server | No | No |
| Capabilities | ||
| Runs terminal commands | YesBoth shell_exec and eval_sexp are available, and the README warns that AI-generated code executes directly in your Emacs. | Yes |
| Multi-file edits | Yes | Yes |
| Git operations | YesRead-only version-control tools — status, diff, log and blame — are exposed to the model. | Yes |
| Browser control | No | No |
| Sandboxed execution | No | No |
| Multi-agent orchestration | No | Yes |
| Headless / CI mode | No | No |
| Models | ||
| Backbone | Claude | Anthropic, OpenAI, Google, OpenRouter, Ollama, LM Studio |
| Bring your own model | No | Yes |
| Local models | No | 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 | unspecified | Apache-2.0 |
| GitHub stars | 455 | 24,287 |
Which one would each critic pick
| Critic | Efrit | Roo Code | Pick |
|---|---|---|---|
| El Juez | — | — | not enough reviews |
| El Amigo | 6.3 | 4.5 | Efrit — Pick it if Emacs is where you actually work and you want the agent inside it; pick Aider in a terminal if you are only visiting Emacs for the keybindings. |
| El Crítico | 5.3 | 3.8 | Efrit — The stated design gives the model shell execution and elisp evaluation with nothing on the client deciding what is safe, and the README flags that itself. |
| El Profesor | 6.0 | 4.3 | 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 | 5.8 | 2.5 | 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 | 4.8 | 2.5 | 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 | 5.3 | 7.3 | Roo Code — Archived, but Apache-2.0, so the fork lives; ZooCode is where I would point my config, and the config barely changes. |
Picks are derived from each critic's own scores. Humans vote on matchups on the duels page.