What is Aider used for?

Aider is an open-source command-line tool for pair programming with large language models, editing your codebase and committing changes through git. It is a good fit for pair programming with an LLM in the terminal and refactoring existing codebases with AI help.

Is Aider open source?

Yes. Aider is open source under the Apache-2.0 licence. Its source code is on GitHub at Aider-AI/aider and is written mainly in Python.

Yes. Aider is open source, so the software itself is free to use.

What is Aider an alternative to?

Aider is an open-source alternative to Claude Code, GitHub Copilot, Cursor and Amazon Q Developer. Other open-source alternatives to Claude Code include Kilo Code, Cline and Continue.

Is Aider actively maintained?

The most recent commit to Aider was on 22 May 2026, and the latest release is v0.86.0, published on 9 August 2025. The project has 49k stars on GitHub.

Aider: open-source alternative to Claude Code

About Aider

Aider is AI pair programming in your terminal. It lets you work with large language models to start a new project or build on an existing codebase, asking for changes in plain language and letting the model edit the files in your repository.

It builds a map of the whole codebase to help in larger projects, supports more than 100 programming languages and commits changes to git with descriptive messages, so you can diff or undo AI edits with familiar tools. It can connect to cloud models and local models, accept images and web pages as context, take voice instructions, and run linters and tests after each change, attempting to fix problems they report. It can also be used from an IDE through code comments, or via copy and paste with a model's web chat.

Aider is written in Python and licensed under Apache-2.0. The README names a handful of commercial models it has been used with most, but says it can connect to almost any model, and installation and usage guides are available in the documentation.

Key features

Codebase map for larger projects
Works with cloud and local LLMs
Automatic git commits with clear messages
Support for 100+ programming languages
Image and web page context
Voice-to-code requests
Automatic linting and testing after edits

Good fit for

→Pair programming with an LLM in the terminal
→Refactoring existing codebases with AI help

Built with: Python
Tags: ai-coding; pair-programming; cli; llm; git; developer-tools; python; terminal

Aider: questions and answers

What is Aider used for?: Aider is an open-source command-line tool for pair programming with large language models, editing your codebase and committing changes through git. It is a good fit for pair programming with an LLM in the terminal and refactoring existing codebases with AI help.
Is Aider open source?: Yes. Aider is open source under the Apache-2.0 licence. Its source code is on GitHub at Aider-AI/aider and is written mainly in Python.
Is Aider free?: Yes. Aider is open source, so the software itself is free to use.
What is Aider an alternative to?: Aider is an open-source alternative to Claude Code, GitHub Copilot, Cursor and Amazon Q Developer. Other open-source alternatives to Claude Code include Kilo Code, Cline and Continue.
Is Aider actively maintained?: The most recent commit to Aider was on 22 May 2026, and the latest release is v0.86.0, published on 9 August 2025. The project has 49k stars on GitHub.