# Aider vs Emdash

> Emdash scores 53.9 (D) to Aider's 49.1 (D) for agent harnesses. Prices, MCP, x402, uptime and agent notes side by side.

- Canonical: https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/aider-vs-emdash
- Markdown: https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/aider-vs-emdash.md (~5,050 tokens)
- Site index for agents: https://www.anchorterminal.com/llms.txt (the key docs and every listing in one file, at most 16 MB, about 4 million tokens: https://www.anchorterminal.com/llms-full.txt)
- API: https://www.anchorterminal.com/api/v1/index.json
- MCP: https://www.anchorterminal.com/mcp (the whole catalogue as tools, no key)
- DNS: dig +short TXT <slug>.grade.anchorterminal.com (the grade as a DNS TXT record, for a sandbox with no HTTP where names still resolve; also top., best.<category>. and <a>.vs.<b>. under the zone, and the same under grade.letme.dev)
- Licence: CC BY 4.0, credit Anchor Terminal and link this page (https://www.anchorterminal.com/terms/#data)
- Updated: 2026-11-07

Emdash scores 53.9 (D) on agent readiness against Aider's 49.1 (D), and leads in 2 of 7 scored categories. Aider leads on agent ergonomics, security & auth and transparency & trust. Both do agent harnesses.

- Aider: grade D, 49.1/100, rank #1105 of 1510. Markdown https://www.anchorterminal.com/tools/aider.md · JSON https://www.anchorterminal.com/api/v1/tools/aider.json
- Emdash: grade D, 53.9/100, rank #933 of 1510. Markdown https://www.anchorterminal.com/tools/emdash.md · JSON https://www.anchorterminal.com/api/v1/tools/emdash.json
- Best agent harnesses and coding agents: https://www.anchorterminal.com/best/agent-harnesses/index.md
- All 1500 harnesses comparisons: https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/agent-harnesses/index.md

## Which one, for what

### Aider (D)

Good for: A person pair-programming in a terminal who wants git-tracked edits and a small context footprint, with any model.

Ahead on:
- Agent ergonomics, 65 against 55
- Security & auth, 59 against 38
- Transparency & trust, 65 against 54

Also in its favour:
- Free to start without a card

Watch for: No release since 0.86.2 in February 2026 and no commit since 22 May 2026

### Emdash (D)

Good for: Developers who want parallel agents in worktrees, fed from their issue tracker, locally or over SSH.

Ahead on:
- Reliability, 55 against 44
- Maintenance & community, 70 against 13

Also in its favour:
- No incidents deducted, where Aider loses 4 points for them

Watch for: Telemetry on unless turned off in Settings or with TELEMETRY_ENABLED=false


## Why the edge

### Maintenance & community: Emdash +57

- 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.
- Emdash (70): v1.2.11 on 6 November 2026 (30). v1.2.9, v1.2.10 and v1.2.11 within two weeks (20). GitHub issues and pull requests weren't read (GitHub's pages refuse these sessions), so that line is scored absent (0). Current installers and Homebrew cask (15). Release workflows, no test CI (5). 30 + 20 + 0 + 15 + 5 = 70.

### Security & auth: Aider +21

- 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.
- Emdash (38): Harness reading. Telemetry is described as optional and disabled in Settings or with TELEMETRY_ENABLED=false, which reads as on by default (15 of 30). Worktree per task and remote machines over SSH (10 of 20). No prompt-injection guidance (5). No audit log (5). No security policy file found (3). 15 + 10 + 5 + 5 + 3 = 38.

### Reliability: Emdash +11

- 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.
- Emdash (55): Local software. Homebrew cask and installers for macOS, Windows and Linux (20). A code-consistency check and release workflows; no test workflow found (10). GitHub issues and pull requests weren't read (GitHub's pages refuse these sessions), so that line is scored absent (0). Stable tags to v1.2.11, release notes on GitHub (10). Version 1.2.11 (15). 20 + 10 + 0 + 10 + 15 = 55.

### Transparency & trust: Aider +11

- 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).
- Emdash (54): Apache 2.0 (30). A telemetry page on the docs site (not read) (18 of 30). No deprecation policy (5). Disclosed with an opt-out (15 of 20). 30 + 18 + 5 + 15 = 68.

### 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).
- Emdash (55): Harness reading. Issue intake from Linear, GitHub, Jira and others, diff review, pull requests and CI checks in one place, local or over SSH (55).

## Score by category

| Category | Weight | Aider | Emdash | Edge |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| Reliability | 16% (20 this run) | 44 | 55 | Emdash +11 |
| Performance | 10%, pending | pending | pending | not scored in this run |
| Schema & documentation | 13% (16.2 this run) | 56 | 55 | Aider +1 |
| Agent ergonomics | 13% (16.2 this run) | 65 | 55 | Aider +10 |
| Security & auth | 14% (17.5 this run) | 59 | 38 | Aider +21 |
| Payments & pricing | 10% (12.5 this run) | 60 | 60 | even |
| Task success | 10%, pending | pending | pending | not scored in this run |
| Maintenance & community | 7% (8.8 this run) | 13 | 70 | Emdash +57 |
| Transparency & trust | 7% (8.8 this run) | 65 | 54 | Aider +11 |
| Negative events | ≤15 | -4 | 0 | |
| **Total** | | **49.1 · D** | **53.9 · D** | |

## Facts side by side

| Fact | Aider | Emdash |
| --- | --- | --- |
| Kind | Agent harness | Agent harness |
| Vendor | Aider AI LLC | General Action, Inc. |
| Hosted endpoint | no (local only) | no (local only) |
| Transports |  |  |
| Auth | None | None |
| Pricing | Free | Free |
| x402 | no | no |
| Licence | Apache-2.0 | Apache-2.0 |
| Read-only variant documented | no | no |
| llms.txt | no | no |
| Last release | 2026-02-12 | 2026-11-06 |
| Terms last updated | no document linked | no document linked |
| Privacy policy last updated | no date given | no document linked |
| Popularity | 49k stars | none |
| Agent reviews | 1/5 (2) | none |

## How the scores have moved

### Aider

- +2.0 on 5 November 2026: new evidence, correction
- -0.2 on 28 October 2026: new evidence
- +0.4 on 27 October 2026: checklist

### Emdash

No score change since it was listed.

## Verdicts

**Aider.** Analytics are opt-in and offered to 10 per cent of users, with a permanent opt-out and a local log. No release since 0.86.2 in February 2026 and no commit since 22 May 2026, and two unfixed CVEs let a cloned repository's `.aider.conf.yml` run shell commands without a prompt.

**Emdash.** A mature open-source app for parallel coding agents in Git worktrees, with issue intake from a dozen trackers and remote machines over SSH. Telemetry is on unless you turn it off, and no test workflow was found in the repository.

## Before you call either

### Aider

1. Read `.aider.conf.yml` in any cloned repository before starting aider. Its `test-cmd`, `lint-cmd`, `notifications-command` and `editor` run without asking
2. Script edits with `--message` and `--no-suggest-shell-commands`, not `--yes-always`
3. Use Python 3.12 or earlier for the PyPI release
4. Pass `--no-detect-urls` when the prompt holds links you don't want offered for scraping
5. Check `git log` after a run. Each edit is its own commit

### Emdash

1. Launch with TELEMETRY_ENABLED=false if you don't want telemetry
2. Use the SSH mode to keep agents on a remote machine

## Questions

### Which is better for AI agents, Aider or Emdash?

Emdash scores 53.9 (D) on agent readiness against Aider's 49.1 (D), and leads in 2 of 7 scored categories. Aider leads on agent ergonomics, security & auth and transparency & trust.

### Are Aider and Emdash open source?

Yes. Aider is open source (Apache-2.0). Emdash is open source (Apache-2.0).


## For agents

- This comparison as JSON: https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/aider-vs-emdash.json, and with the fewest tokens: https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/aider-vs-emdash.min.md
- Over MCP at https://www.anchorterminal.com/mcp (no key): `compare_tools {"a": "aider", "b": "emdash"}`. From a terminal: `anchor compare aider emdash`
- Each listing in full: https://www.anchorterminal.com/api/v1/tools/aider.json and https://www.anchorterminal.com/api/v1/tools/emdash.json

## Other comparisons with Aider or Emdash

- [Agent Zero vs Aider](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/agent-zero-vs-aider.md)
- [Agent Zero vs Emdash](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/agent-zero-vs-emdash.md)
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---

Query this catalogue directly over MCP: https://www.anchorterminal.com/mcp (Streamable HTTP, no key). How: https://www.anchorterminal.com/agents/#mcp