Discover / Token & Cost Optimization
Aider
by Aider-AIPython
AI pair-programming CLI with model routing and cost-effective multi-model editing strategies.
Maturity: experimental because latest release v0.86.0 is pre 1.0. Derived from release and commit history, not a rating.
- Stars
- 48k
- Forks
- 4.8k
- Downloads / mo
- 813k
- Last commit
- 2026-05-22
- License
- Apache-2.0
- Open issues
- 1.8k
Market and trust evidence
Edition not yet matchedNo exact skills.sh identity match is available for this repository. Repository adoption and freshness remain visible above; install momentum is not inferred.
Trust analysis is a screening signal, not a security warranty. Read the ranking and trust methodology.
In practice
Written by AI from this repository’s README · high confidenceChat based coding help loses track of a large codebase and leaves you pasting diffs back by hand.
Use it when
When you want an agent that maps the repo, edits files directly, and records each change as a git commit.
Not the right pick when
Quality depends on the model you connect, and you supply your own provider key or local model.
Capabilities
- works with cloud and local LLMs
- maps your entire codebase for larger projects
- supports 100+ programming languages
- automatic git commits with sensible messages
- watch mode driven by comments inside your IDE
- automatic lint and test runs with fixes
Requirements
- an API key for your chosen model provider, or a local model
Cost: Free and open source
Install
Derived from the published package name in the repository, not from a model.
Video walkthroughs
Master Aider AI’s Chat Modes: Ask, Code, Architect Explained!
Getting Started with AIDER: AI Code Generation for Terminal Projects
Third-party YouTube uploads matched to this tool by title, channel and repository name on 2026-08-03. Not made, reviewed or endorsed by SkillPilot. View counts and publish months are as of the match date and the month is approximate. Nothing loads from YouTube until you press play.
What the repository ships
Detected from the actual files in the repository root.
Latest release v0.86.0
Published 2025-08-09
- Added support for all GPT-5 models.
- Added support for Grok-4 via
xai/grok-4andopenrouter/x-ai/grok-4model names. - Added support for
gemini/gemini-2.5-flash-lite-preview-06-17model, by Tamir Zahavi-Brunner. /clearnow prints “All chat history cleared.” so you know it worked, by Zexin Yuan./undooutput now shows only the first line of each commit message, making it easier to read.- Added support for
openrouter/moonshotai/kimi-k2model, by Jack Harrington. - Display model announcements with no-arg
/modelcommand. - Fixed an issue where new settings for an existing model didn't replace the old ones, by Andrew Grigorev.
- Fixed analytics to support the latest PostHog SDK event-capture API.
- Bumped dependencies to pick up latest litellm==1.75.0.
- Aider wrote 88% of the code in this release.
Tags
README
<p align="center">
<a href="https://aider.chat/"><img src="https://aider.chat/assets/logo.svg" alt="Aider Logo" width="300"></a>
</p>
<h1 align="center">
AI Pair Programming in Your Terminal
</h1>
<p align="center">
Aider lets you pair program with LLMs to start a new project or build on your existing codebase.
</p>
<p align="center">
<img
src="https://aider.chat/assets/screencast.svg"
alt="aider screencast"
</p>
<p align="center">
<!--[[[cog
from scripts.homepage import get_badges_md
text = get_badges_md()
cog.out(text)
]]]-->
<a href="https://github.com/Aider-AI/aider/stargazers"><img alt="GitHub Stars" title="Total number of GitHub stars the Aider project has received"
src="https://img.shields.io/github/stars/Aider-AI/aider?style=flat-square&logo=github&color=f1c40f&labelColor=555555"/></a>
<a href="https://pypi.org/project/aider-chat/"><img alt="PyPI Downloads" title="Total number of installations via pip from PyPI"
src="https://img.shields.io/badge/📦%20Installs-6.8M-2ecc71?style=flat-square&labelColor=555555"/></a>
<img alt="Tokens per week" title="Number of tokens processed weekly by Aider users"
src="https://img.shields.io/badge/📈%20Tokens%2Fweek-15B-3498db?style=flat-square&labelColor=555555"/>
<a href="https://openrouter.ai/#options-menu"><img alt="OpenRouter Ranking" title="Aider's ranking among applications on the OpenRouter platform"
src="https://img.shields.io/badge/🏆%20OpenRouter-Top%2020-9b59b6?style=flat-square&labelColor=555555"/></a>
<a href="https://aider.chat/HISTORY.html"><img alt="Singularity" title="Percentage of the new code in Aider's last release written by Aider itself"
src="https://img.shields.io/badge/🔄%20Singularity-88%25-e74c3c?style=flat-square&labelColor=555555"/></a>
<!--[[[end]]]-->
</p>
Features
Cloud and local LLMs
<a href="https://aider.chat/docs/llms.html"><img src="https://aider.chat/assets/icons/brain.svg" width="32" height="32" align="left" valign="middle" style="margin-right:10px"></a>
Aider works best with Claude 3.7 Sonnet, DeepSeek R1 & Chat V3, OpenAI o1, o3-mini & GPT-4o, but can connect to almost any LLM, including local models.
<br>
Maps your codebase
<a href="https://aider.chat/docs/repomap.html"><img src="https://aider.chat/assets/icons/map-outline.svg" width="32" height="32" align="left" valign="middle" style="margin-right:10px"></a>
Aider makes a map of your entire codebase, which helps it work well in larger projects.
<br>
100+ code languages
<a href="https://aider.chat/docs/languages.html"><img src="https://aider.chat/assets/icons/code-tags.svg" width="32" height="32" align="left" valign="middle" style="margin-right:10px"></a>
Aider works with most popular programming languages: python, javascript, rust, ruby, go, cpp, php, html, css, and dozens more.
<br>
Git integration
<a href="https://aider.chat/docs/git.html"><img src="https://aider.chat/assets/icons/source-branch.svg" width="32" height="32" align="left" valign="middle" style="margin-right:10px"></a>
Aider automatically commits changes with sensible commit messages. Use familiar git tools to easily diff, manage and undo AI changes.
<br>
Use in your IDE
<a href="https://aider.chat/docs/usage/watch.html"><img src="https://aider.chat/assets/icons/monitor.svg" width="32" height="32" align="left" valign="middle" style="margin-right:10px"></a>
Use aider from within your favorite IDE or editor. Ask for changes by adding comments to your code and aider will get to work.
<br>
Images & web pages
<a href="https://aider.chat/docs/usage/images-urls.html"><img src="https://aider.chat/assets/icons/image-multiple.svg" width="32" height="32" align="left" valign="middle" style="margin-right:10px"></a>
Add images and web pages to the chat to provide visual context, screenshots, reference docs, etc.
<br>
Voice-to-code
<a href="https://aider.chat/docs/usage/voice.html"><img src="https://aider.chat/assets/icons/microphone.svg" width="32" height="32" align="left" valign="middle" style="margin-right:10px"></a>
Speak with aider about your code! Request new features, test cases or bug fixes using your voice and let aider implement the changes.
<br>
Linting & testing
<a href="https://aider.chat/docs/usage/lint-test.html"><img src="https://aider.chat/assets/icons/check-all.svg" width="32" height="32" align="left" valign="middle" style="margin-right:10px"></a>
Automatically lint and test your code every time aider makes changes. Aider can fix problems detected by your linters and test suites.
<br>
Copy/paste to web chat
<a href="https://aider.chat/docs/usage/copypaste.html"><img src="https://aider.chat/assets/icons/content-copy.svg" width="32" height="32" align="left" valign="middle" style="margin-right:10px"></a>
Work with any LLM via its web chat interface. Aider streamlines copy/pasting code context and edits back and forth with a browser.
Getting Started
python -m pip install aider-install
aider-install
# Change directory into your codebase
cd /to/your/project
# DeepSeek
aider --model deepseek --api-key deepseek=<key>
# Claude 3.7 Sonnet
aider --model sonnet --api-key anthropic=<key>
# o3-mini
aider --model o3-mini --api-key openai=<key>
See the installation instructions and usage documentation for more details.
More Information
Documentation
- Installation Guide
- Usage Guide
- Tutorial Videos
- Connecting to LLMs
- Configuration Options
- Troubleshooting
- FAQ
Community & Resources
Kind Words From Users
- "My life has changed... Aider... It's going to rock your world." — Eric S. Raymond on X
- "The best free open source AI coding assistant." — IndyDevDan on YouTube
- "The best AI coding assistant so far." — Matthew Berman on YouTube
- "Aider ... has easily quadrupled my coding productivity." — SOLAR_FIELDS on Hacker News
- "It's a cool workflow... Aider's ergonomics are perfect for me." — qup on Hacker News
- "It's really like having your senior developer live right in your Git repo - truly amazing!" — rappster on GitHub
- "What an amazing tool. It's incredible." — valyagolev on GitHub
- "Aider is such an astounding thing!" — cgrothaus on GitHub
- "It was WAY faster than I would be getting off the ground and making the first few working versions." — Daniel Feldman on X
- "THANK YOU for Aider! It really feels like a glimpse into the future of coding." — derwiki on Hacker News
- "It's just amazing. It is freeing me to do things I felt were out my comfort zone before." — Dougie on Discord
- "This project is stellar." — funkytaco on GitHub
- "Amazing project, definitely the best AI coding assistant I've used." — joshuavial on GitHub
- "I absolutely love using Aider ... It makes software development feel so much lighter as an experience." — principalideal0 on Discord
- "I have been recovering from ... surgeries ... aider ... has allowed me to continue productivity." — codeninja on Reddit
- "I am an aider addict. I'm getting so much more work done, but in less time." — dandandan on Discord
- "Aider... blows everything else out of the water hands down, there's no competition whatsoever." — SystemSculpt on Discord
- "Aider is amazing, coupled with Sonnet 3.5 it's quite mind blowing." — Josh Dingus on Discord
- "Hands down, this is the best AI coding assistant tool so far." — IndyDevDan on YouTube
- "[Aider] changed my daily coding workflows. It's mind-blowing how ...(it)... can change your life." — maledorak on Discord
- "Best agent for actual dev work in existing codebases." — Nick Dobos on X
- "One of my favorite pieces of software. Blazing trails on new paradigms!" — Chris Wall on X
- "Aider has been revolutionary for me and my work." — Starry Hope on X
- "Try aider! One of the best ways to vibe code." — Chris Wall on X
- "Freaking love Aider." — hztar on Hacker News
- "Aider is hands down the best. And it's free and opensource." — AriyaSavakaLurker on Reddit
- "Aider is also my best friend." — jzn21 on Reddit
- "Try Aider, it's worth it." — jorgejhms on Reddit
- "I like aider :)" — Chenwei Cui on X
- "Aider is the precision tool of LLM code gen... Minimal, thoughtful and capable of surgical changes ... while keeping the developer in control." — Reilly Sweetland on X
- "Cannot believe aider vibe coded a 650 LOC feature across service and cli today in 1 shot." - autopoietist on Discord
- "Oh no the secret is out! Yes, Aider is the best coding tool around. I highly, highly recommend it to anyone." — Joshua D Vander Hook on X
- "thanks to aider, i have started and finished three personal projects within the last two days" — joseph stalzyn on X
- "Been using aider as my daily driver for over a year ... I absolutely love the tool, like beyond words." — koleok on Discord
- "Aider ... is the tool to benchmark against." — BeetleB on Hacker News
- "aider is really cool" — kache on X