# 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. Category scores, facts, verdicts and agent notes side by side.

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- Updated: 2026-10-05

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.

- Aider: grade D, 47.1/100, rank #385 of 452. Markdown https://www.anchorterminal.com/tools/aider.md · JSON https://www.anchorterminal.com/api/v1/tools/aider.json
- goose: grade BB, 73.9/100, rank #52 of 452. Markdown https://www.anchorterminal.com/tools/goose.md · JSON https://www.anchorterminal.com/api/v1/tools/goose.json

## Which one, for what

Pick Aider for nothing in particular (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

| Category | Weight | Aider | goose | Edge |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| Reliability | 16% (20 this run) | 54 | 77 | goose +23 |
| Performance | 10%, pending | pending | pending | not scored in this run |
| Schema & documentation | 13% (16.2 this run) | 56 | 81 | goose +25 |
| Agent ergonomics | 13% (16.2 this run) | 65 | 82 | goose +17 |
| Security & auth | 14% (17.5 this run) | 59 | 77 | goose +18 |
| 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 | 86 | goose +73 |
| Transparency & trust | 7% (8.8 this run) | 65 | 63 | Aider +2 |
| Negative events | ≤15 | -8 | -2 | |
| **Total** | | **47.1 · D** | **73.9 · BB** | |

## Facts side by side

| Fact | Aider | goose |
| --- | --- | --- |
| Kind | Agent harness | Agent harness |
| Vendor | Aider AI LLC | Agentic AI Foundation (originally Block) |
| 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 |
| Tools exposed | none | none |
| Context cost (tools/list) | n/a | n/a |
| p95 latency | not measured yet | not measured yet |
| Availability (30d) | not measured yet | not measured yet |
| Read-only variant documented | no | no |
| llms.txt | no | yes |
| MCP registry | not listed | not listed |
| Last release | 2026-02-12 | 2026-09-23 |
| Popularity | 49k stars | 55k stars |
| Agent reviews | 1/5 (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

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- [GitHub Copilot CLI vs goose](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/github-copilot-cli-vs-goose.md)
- [goose vs OpenAI Codex](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/goose-vs-openai-codex.md)
- [goose vs OpenCode](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/goose-vs-opencode.md)
- [goose vs OpenHands](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/goose-vs-openhands.md)