Aider vs Factory

Pick two tools from the same category to compare side-by-side.

	Aider OSS AI pair programmer for the terminal; multi-model, git-native.	Factory Agent-native software development platform from Factory AI, powered by its Droid agents in the terminal, desktop, and web.
Category	harness	harness
Vendor type	open source	commercial
Pricing	free	subscription
Strengths	+ Fully open source + Multi-model (Anthropic, OpenAI, OpenRouter, local) + Git-native commit-per-change workflow	+ Multi-surface platform spanning CLI, desktop, web, and headless CI/CD exec mode + Model routing across providers instead of single-vendor lock-in + Deep extensibility with MCP, custom droids, skills, hooks, and plugins + Multi-agent Missions for coordinated feature development
Tradeoffs	− Less polished than IDE-based harnesses − No managed plugin ecosystem	− No free tier; entry starts at the $20/month Pro subscription − Usage is capped by rolling rate limits within each subscription tier − Enterprise-oriented platform breadth can be heavyweight for solo developers
Used in stacks	1	0