Aider vs Roo Code
A side-by-side comparison of capabilities, autonomy, integrations, and pricing to help you choose.
Short answer: choose Aider if you want open-source ai pair programming in your terminal, backed by git (Supervised agent, free); choose Roo Code if you want open-source ai coding agent for vs code (a cline fork), now archived (Supervised agent, free).
| Aider | Roo Code | |
|---|---|---|
| What it is | Open-source AI pair programming in your terminal, backed by Git | Open-source AI coding agent for VS Code (a Cline fork), now archived |
| Type | agent | agent |
| Autonomy | Supervised agent | Supervised agent |
| Pricing | free · Free (open source; pay your own model costs) | free · Free (open source); pay your own model providers |
| Best for | developers | developers |
| Deployment | self-hosted | self-hosted |
| Modalities | text, code | text, code |
| Models | model-agnostic | model-agnostic |
| Protocols | function-calling, rest-api | mcp, function-calling, rest-api |
| Integrations | Git, GitHub, OpenAI, Anthropic, Google Gemini, DeepSeek | VS Code, Anthropic, OpenAI, Google Gemini, OpenRouter, AWS Bedrock |
| Capabilities | 4 documented | 4 documented |
Aider
- +Fully open source (Apache-2.0) and free; you only pay your chosen model provider
- +Git-native: every AI change is a reviewable, revertible commit
- +Model-agnostic with a repo map that scales to larger codebases
- -Terminal-only with no GUI or IDE-native experience for those who want one
- -Runs locally and edits real files, so a human must review every change
Roo Code
- +Open source and model-agnostic with no inference markup (bring your own keys)
- +Multi-mode architecture (Architect/Code/Debug/Ask/Orchestrator) with per-mode tool permissions
- +MCP support and customizable modes gave fine-grained control over the agent
- -Shut down and archived on May 15, 2026; the extension is no longer maintained
- -Was VS Code-extension only, so it depended on your IDE and local environment
Which should you choose?
Aider is open-source ai pair programming in your terminal, backed by git, best for developers. Roo Code is open-source ai coding agent for vs code (a cline fork), now archived, best for developers. The right choice depends on the autonomy level you want, your existing integrations, and your budget, all compared above.