Aider vs Refact.ai
Aider
aider.chatRefact.ai
refact.aiSide by side
| Figure | Aider | Refact.ai |
|---|---|---|
| Price from | Free | $10/mo |
| Free plan | Yes | Yes |
| Free trial | — | — |
| Open source | — | — |
| Web | Yes | — |
| Windows | Yes | Yes |
| macOS | Yes | Yes |
| Linux | Yes | Yes |
| API | — | Yes |
| Self-hosted | Yes | Yes |
| Plans published | 1 | 3 |
| Spec score · AI Coding Assistants | 8.8 (#21) | 9.3 (#5) |
| Spec score · AI Code Generators | 8.8 (#13) | 8.8 (#16) |
| Coding agent | Yes | Yes |
| Chat assistance | Yes | Yes |
| Codebase indexing | Yes | Yes |
| IDE support | Aider can watch files and respond to AI comments added in an IDE or text editor. | The download page lists plugins for VS Code and JetBrains IDEs, with Visual Studio, Neovim, and Sublime Text marked beta. |
| Languages | Aider supports more than 100 programming languages. | The site says Refact.ai supports more than 25 programming languages. |
| Security | The privacy policy says Aider uses physical and electronic safeguards but cannot guarantee the security or privacy of information. | The privacy policy says transmitted data is encrypted in transit and at rest, access is controlled, and role-based access controls and multi-factor authentication are used. |
| Support | The maker points users to documentation, troubleshooting information, and a Discord community. | The enterprise offering includes dedicated assistance from engineers, priority support, and onboarding. |
| Supported IDEs | VS Code | VS Code,JetBrains,Visual Studio,Neovim,Sublime Text |
| Terminal access | Yes | Yes |
Plans
In their own words
Refact.ai
Refact.ai is a free, open-source autonomous AI coding agent for software development. It provides real-time code completion, in-IDE chat and agent workflows that can plan, execute and deploy coding tasks while letting users preview and control the process. Chat supports natural-language questions, editing, debugging and code generation. Repository analysis, retrieval-augmented generation and codebase indexing provide project-aware context, and terminal access is available. The maker says it supports more than 25 programming languages. Plugins are listed for VS Code and JetBrains, with Visual Studio, Neovim and Sublime Text marked beta. Platforms include Windows, macOS, Linux, API, extension and self-hosted deployment. Local use can connect to configured providers or runtimes such as OpenAI, Anthropic, Gemini, Ollama, LM Studio and vLLM. The Free plan costs nothing for personal and hobby projects. Pro costs $10 a month for professional use. Hosted accounts and cloud features are being retired.