Aider vs Cody
Pricing
Aider: Free (open source), you pay for API usage
Cody: Enterprise only, from $16,000 a year
Description
Aider: Open-source terminal AI that edits your code and makes clean git commits automatically
Cody: Sourcegraph's AI coding assistant, sold only with Sourcegraph Enterprise since the Free and Pro plans ended in July 2025
Pros
- Git-aware: every change is a well-described commit you can review or revert
- Works with Claude, OpenAI and DeepSeek models, plus local models
- Maps your whole codebase and can run linters and tests after each change
- Uses Sourcegraph's code search to answer questions across large codebases
- Works in VS Code, JetBrains, Visual Studio (experimental), the Sourcegraph web app and a CLI
- Sourcegraph says it does not use customer data to train models
Cons
- Terminal-only: no GUI, no visual diff preview
- API costs are yours to manage and can add up with large context
- Development has slowed: the latest release, v0.86.0, came out in August 2025
- No plan for individuals: Cody Free and Cody Pro ended on 23 July 2025
- Sourcegraph Enterprise requires a yearly contract starting at $16,000
- Built for engineering organizations, not solo founders
Details
Aider is a terminal tool that pair-programs with you. You tell it what to change, it edits the files, and (here is the part that wins people over) it creates a clean git commit with a descriptive message. Every change is tracked, reviewable, and revertable. No other AI coding tool handles version control this naturally.
Built by Paul Gauthier, it builds a map of your whole repository so it can work on larger codebases. The tradeoff is that it is terminal-only and requires you to bring your own API key, and there is a learning curve to getting the most out of it (knowing which files to add, how to prompt). Development has also slowed: the latest release, v0.86.0, came out in August 2025, and the repository has had no new commits since May 2026, so support for newer models may lag. If you are already comfortable with git and the command line, aider fits into your workflow like a glove. If you want a visual editor experience, look at Cursor or Cline instead.
Cody’s strength is Sourcegraph’s code graph. While most AI tools see only the files you have open, Cody can draw on an index of your whole repository, so it can answer questions like “where is the authentication logic?” even when those files are closed.
Sourcegraph stopped new Cody Free and Pro sign-ups on 25 June 2025 and ended both plans on 23 July 2025. Cody is now available only on Sourcegraph Enterprise, which starts at a $16,000 yearly contract, and Sourcegraph pointed individual users to Amp, its separate coding agent. For a solo founder, GitHub Copilot is the closest low-cost editor assistant, Cursor gives whole-codebase context in a full editor, and Claude Code works across a repository from the terminal.
Verified
