Aider and Claude Code, fact by fact
| Fact | Aider | Claude Code |
|---|---|---|
| Stars | not tracked for Aider | 149,849Verified 8 Oct 2026 |
| Newest commit | not tracked for Aider | 8 Oct 20260 days old when we read itVerified 8 Oct 2026 |
| Contributors | not tracked for Aider | 57Verified 8 Oct 2026 |
| Latest stable release | not tracked for Aider | v2.1.294published 8 Oct 2026Verified 8 Oct 2026 |
| npm downloads | not tracked for Aider | 14,786,283 a week@anthropic-ai/claude-codeVerified 8 Oct 2026 |
| Repository | not tracked for Aider | anthropics/claude-codeTypeScriptVerified 8 Oct 2026 |
What our catalogue holds
These are curated rows, not readings. We state no difference between the two columns because we have not checked either of them.
| Catalogue field | Aider | Claude Code |
|---|---|---|
| Category | CLI Tool | CLI Tool |
| Where it runs | Terminal | Terminal |
| Pricing string, uncheckedWrong on 43 of our 190 rows. Not a price of ours. | Open Source | Claude Pro/Max/Team |
| Vendor page | aider.chat | github.com |
What we know about Claude Code
Claude Code runs only Anthropic models: every alias — default, best, fable, sonnet, opus, haiku and opusplan — resolves to a Claude model, and changing the base URL moves where the request goes without changing which model answers it.
“ANTHROPIC_BASE_URL changes where requests are sent, not which model answers them.”
Plan a change with Opus and execute it with Sonnet inside one session, by setting the model to `opusplan`.
“Special mode that uses opus during plan mode, then switches to sonnet for execution”
Run the agent on infrastructure your employer already approved: the model setting accepts an Amazon Bedrock inference profile ARN, a Microsoft Foundry deployment name, or a Google Cloud Agent Platform version name.
“Amazon Bedrock: an inference profile ARN”
Work one long task without losing history: `sonnet[1m]` gives a 1 million token context window, and auto-compaction runs below it.
“Uses Sonnet with a 1 million token context window for long sessions”
You cannot audit, fork or patch the agent: the repository publishes the changelog, plugins and examples, not the CLI source, under an all-rights-reserved licence. GitHub Copilot CLI is the only other tool in this set that does the same.
“© Anthropic PBC. All rights reserved. Use is subject to Anthropic's [Commercial Terms of Service](https://www.anthropic.com/legal/commercial-terms).”
Subscribers report the plan limit arriving far earlier than the plan implies: the repository's most-commented open issue carries 1,487 comments and 724 reactions and has stayed open since 2026-01-03.
“[BUG] Instantly hitting usage limits with Max subscription”
On API-key billing the cost is per token, and Anthropic's own enterprise figure is $150-250 per developer per month.
“Across enterprise deployments, the average cost is around $13 per developer per active day and $150-250 per developer per month, with costs remaining below $30 per active day for 90% of users.”
A developer who must run a local or self-hosted model should choose goose or Crush; both accept an Ollama endpoint.
“Local model runner supporting Qwen, Llama, DeepSeek, and other open-source models.”
What Claude Code costs
Claude Pro costs $17 per month on the annual plan, $200 billed up front, or $20 per month billed monthly; Max starts at $100 per month.
“Per month with annual subscription discount ($200 billed up front). $20 if billed monthly.”
Pro and Max subscribers do not pay per token for Claude Code; the usage sits inside the subscription.
“Claude Max and Pro subscribers have usage included in their subscription, so the session cost figure isn’t relevant for billing purposes.”
What this page does not answer
We have researched Claude Code and we have not researched Aider. That means the judgments above answer for one tool and not for the other, and we publish no price for Aider because we have not read its pricing page. Nothing on this page about Aider is our opinion; there is not enough evidence yet for one.
Questions people ask
- Are Aider and Claude Code still maintained?
- Aider has no repository we track. Claude Code committed to anthropics/claude-code (main) on 8 Oct 2026. Both readings come from the default branch of each repository, on the date shown beside them.
- What does Claude Code cost?
- Aider: we have not read its pricing page, so we publish no price for it. Claude Code: Claude Pro costs $17 per month on the annual plan, $200 billed up front, or $20 per month billed monthly; Max starts at $100 per month. Pro and Max subscribers do not pay per token for Claude Code; the usage sits inside the subscription. Every figure here is quoted from the vendor's own page and linked beside the claim.
How we check this page
- Machine facts. Stars, contributors, the newest commit on the default branch, the licence GitHub reports and the latest stable release come from the GitHub API, and download counts from npm, PyPI, Homebrew and the VS Code Marketplace. Each value carries the day it was last confirmed, never the day this page was built. The line under each label is arithmetic on those two values.
- Judgments. Every claim about what a tool suits, what it is bad at and what it costs is quoted from a page we read, and that page is linked beside the claim. Where there is no link, we wrote no claim.
- Index status. Claude Code carries claims we read, quoted and linked; Aider does not. So this page is offered to search engines.
Related comparisons
Pairs we can answer for come first.
