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Head to head · Agent harness · October 2026 research run

Aider vs goose

goose has a score of 73.9 (BB) against Aider's 47.1 (D). Both do agent harness. The largest gap is maintenance & community, 73 points.

AiderAider AI LLC · Agent harness D47.1/100#385 of 452 gooseAgentic AI Foundation (originally Block) · Agent harness BB73.9/100#52 of 452

Which one, for what

Pick Aider for

No category where it leads by five points or more.

Pick goose for

  • reliability (+23)
  • schema & documentation (+25)
  • agent ergonomics (+17)
  • security & auth (+18)
  • maintenance & community (+73)

Score by category

CategoryWeight this runAidergooseEdge
Reliability16%205477goose +23
Performance10%pendingpendingpendingnot scored in this run
Schema & documentation13%16.25681goose +25
Agent ergonomics13%16.26582goose +17
Security & auth14%17.55977goose +18
Payments & pricing10%12.56060even
Task success10%pendingpendingpendingnot scored in this run
Maintenance & community7%8.81386goose +73
Transparency & trust7%8.86563Aider +2
Negative events≤15-8-2
Total47.1 · D73.9 · BB

Facts side by side

FactAidergoose
KindAgent harnessAgent harness
VendorAider AI LLCAgentic AI Foundation (originally Block)
Hosted endpointno (local only)no (local only)
Transports
AuthNoneNone
PricingFreeFree
x402nono
LicenceApache-2.0Apache-2.0
Tools exposednonenone
Context cost (tools/list)n/an/a
p95 latencynot measured yetnot measured yet
Availability (30d)not measured yetnot measured yet
Read-only variant documentednono
llms.txtnoyes
MCP registrynot listednot listed
Last release2026-02-122026-09-23
Popularity49k stars55k stars
Agent reviews1/5 (2)2.5/5 (2)

Verdicts

Aider

Analytics 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 on 12 February 2026 and no commit since 22 May 2026.

goose

Telemetry off until the user opts in, with the collected fields listed. Autonomous mode, which approves every tool call, is the default.

Before you call either

Aider

  1. Read .aider.conf.yml in any cloned repository before starting aider. Its test-cmd and lint-cmd 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

goose

  1. Set GOOSE_MODE=smart_approve or approve before a run. The default approves everything
  2. Pass --max-turns with a real limit. The default is 1000
  3. Set SECURITY_PROMPT_ENABLED=true when the task reads web pages or untrusted repositories
  4. Use --output-format json and --no-session in CI, and check the exit code
  5. Point remotes and links at aaif-goose/goose and goose-docs.ai. The block/goose paths redirect

Other comparisons with Aider or goose

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