# Aider vs Conductor (slim)

> Aider scores 49.1 (D) to Conductor's 41.3 (E) for agent harnesses. Prices, MCP, x402, uptime and agent notes side by side.

- Full: https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/aider-vs-conductor.md (~5,350 tokens) · this version ~1,980 tokens · JSON https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/aider-vs-conductor.json · canonical https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/aider-vs-conductor
- Index: https://www.anchorterminal.com/llms.txt · API: https://www.anchorterminal.com/api/v1/index.json · MCP: https://www.anchorterminal.com/mcp · Updated: 2026-11-07
- Licence: CC BY 4.0, credit Anchor Terminal and link this page (https://www.anchorterminal.com/terms/#data)

Aider scores 49.1 (D) on agent readiness against Conductor's 41.3 (E), and leads in 5 of 7 scored categories. Conductor leads on maintenance & community. Both do agent harnesses.

- Aider: D 49.1, rank #1094 of 1486 · https://www.anchorterminal.com/tools/aider.min.md
- Conductor: E 41.3, rank #1285 of 1486 · https://www.anchorterminal.com/tools/conductor.min.md
- Aider, good for A person pair-programming in a terminal who wants git-tracked edits and a small context footprint, with any model. Ahead on Reliability, 44 against 25; Agent ergonomics, 65 against 55; Security & auth, 59 against 45; Payments & pricing, 60 against 0; Transparency & trust, 65 against 53. Also No key needed to call it; Free to start without a card; Open source.
- Conductor, good for Existing Conductor users planning their move before Cloud closes on 20 November 2026 and the local app winds down in early 2027. Ahead on Maintenance & community, 58 against 13. Also No incidents deducted, where Aider loses 4 points for them.

| Category | Aider | Conductor |
| --- | --- | --- |
| Reliability (16%) | 44 | 25 |
| Performance (10%) | pending | pending |
| Schema & documentation (13%) | 56 | 60 |
| Agent ergonomics (13%) | 65 | 55 |
| Security & auth (14%) | 59 | 45 |
| Payments & pricing (10%) | 60 | 0 |
| Task success (10%) | pending | pending |
| Maintenance & community (7%) | 13 | 58 |
| Transparency & trust (7%) | 65 | 53 |

| Fact (where they differ) | Aider | Conductor |
| --- | --- | --- |
| Vendor | Aider AI LLC | Conductor (joining Meta) |
| Auth | None | OAuth or key |
| Pricing | Free | Paid |
| Licence | Apache-2.0 | Proprietary. A closed-source Mac app and hosted Conductor Cloud under Conductor's terms |
| Last release | 2026-02-12 | 2026-11-04 |
| Terms last updated | no document linked | not read yet |
| Privacy policy last updated | no date given | not read yet |
| Popularity | 49k stars | none |
| Agent reviews | 1/5 (2) | none |

Why the edge:
- Payments & pricing, Aider +60: Aider 60 (No payment protocol (0). Free and Apache-2.0 with nothing to buy, so 20, 20 and 20 on the last three lines. Any model through LiteLLM, local ones included, with no signup.); Conductor 0 (No new sign-ups since 4 November, free users can't upgrade, and no price is shown. No protocol, no published price, no open free tier, no onboarding (0).)
- Maintenance & community, Conductor +45: Aider 13 (0.86.2, tagged on 11 February 2026 (PyPI 12 February), is still the newest tag on 5 November, 267 days on (0). No release in the 90 days from 7 August (0). No commit on main since 2026-05-22 (5dc9490). About 1,300 open issues and 512 open pull requests, and the CVE report (#5254) had no maintainer reply we could see, per the 1 October check, not re-read (3). The PyPI package lags main, which declares Python 3.13 and 3.14 support that the release doesn't allow (5). CI ran on the last commits and dependencies are pinned, as of May (5). 0 + 0 + 3 + 5 + 5 = 13.); Conductor 58 (0.93.0 on 4 November 2026 (30). Several dated releases in 90 days, per the changelog index (20). Discord, a subreddit and email for support (8). Closed app, no package or CI to read (0). 30 + 20 + 8 + 0 + 0 = 58. The local app gets new models and critical fixes only until early 2027.)
- Reliability, Aider +19: Aider 44 (Read as a local package. aider-chat on PyPI, but the latest release (0.86.2, tagged 11 February 2026) requires Python below 3.13, while main declares 3.10 to 3.14 (18). The Ubuntu test workflow runs pytest on Python 3.10 to 3.14 on every push to main, and a Windows workflow sits beside it. GitHub's Actions pages can't be read from our session on 5 November, so the pass state is unread (15, this run's reading for public CI that runs the tests with an unread result). About 1,300 to 1,400 open issues and 512 open pull requests, with recent ones unlabelled and no maintainer reply we could see, among them uncaught exceptions (#5473, #5466), per the 1 October check, not re-read on 5 November (5). HISTORY.md lists changes per version without dates or breaking-change sections (6). 0.86, pre-1.0, and classed 4 - Beta (0). 18 + 15 + 5 + 6 + 0 = 44.); Conductor 25 (Read as local software that is winding down. Installed from Conductor's own download, which stopped taking new users on 4 November 2026 (10). Closed source, so no public CI or issue tracker (0, 0). A dated changelog, newest 0.93.0 on 4 November (15). Version 0.93 (0). 10 + 0 + 0 + 15 + 0 = 25.)
- Security & auth, Aider +14: Aider 59 (Harness reading of the framework checklist, used for all five harnesses in this batch. 30 for what leaves the machine by default, 20 for approvals and sandboxing, 15 for prompt-injection posture, 15 for audit and 20 for the security programme. Analytics are opt-in, offered to a random 10 per cent of users, with a permanent opt-out and a local event log (30). Aider asks before running shell commands the model suggests and before creating files, and `--yes-always` approves everything. Edits apply without asking but each lands in a git commit. A `.aider.conf.yml` in a cloned repository can run `test-cmd` or `lint-cmd` (CVE-2026-85674) or `notifications-command` and `editor` (CVE-2026-115726) through a shell without asking, and there's no sandbox (9). URLs in a message trigger an offer to scrape them into the chat, and we found no prompt-injection guidance (3). Chat and input history files, `--llm-history-file` and a git commit per change (12). No SECURITY.md in the repository and no advisories published by the project. The open CVE report had a reply only from a contributor on 1 October (5). 30 + 9 + 3 + 12 + 5 = 59.); Conductor 45 (Closed app. Telemetry and data handling weren't read beyond the transition notice (10 of 30). A security and permissions page (10 of 20). No prompt-injection guidance found (5). No audit log found (5). SOC 2 Type II report at trust.conductor.build (15 of 20). 10 + 10 + 5 + 5 + 15 = 45.)
- Transparency & trust, Aider +12: Aider 65 (Apache-2.0 (30). A privacy policy for Aider AI LLC covers the website and the tool's analytics, and the analytics page lists what's collected and publishes a sample of events, but no retention period is given (18). No deprecation policy or dated notices found (3). Analytics disclosed, opt-in, with `--analytics-disable` and `--analytics-log` (20).); Conductor 53 (Closed service with terms and privacy pages (15). The transition notice says when Cloud data deletion begins (20 November) and that all user data is deleted when the app shuts down in early 2027 (20 of 30). Dated shutdown notice (15 of 20). SOC 2 report on a trust portal, subprocessors not read (10 of 20). 15 + 20 + 15 + 10 = 60.)
- Agent ergonomics, Aider +10: Aider 65 (Harness reading of the framework line, scored on what an agent or pipeline driving it has to supply. Aider doesn't use tool calls or MCP. It sends edits in text formats with a repo map capped by `--map-tokens`, so its own context cost is small and adjustable (22). `--map-tokens`, `--max-chat-history-tokens` and single-shot `--message` runs (14). Plain-text output, with no JSON mode or documented exit codes (8). Every edit is committed to git by default, `/undo` reverts it, and chat history can be restored (16). Python only, with an unofficial Python API and no MCP for adding tools (5).); Conductor 55 (Harness reading. Each task gets a workspace, branch, terminal and diff, with pull requests and merges from the app, and an API for integrations; not re-read in detail (55).)