Aider vs Bolt.new
AI pair programmer in your terminal — works with any LLM provider
vs. Prompt to full-stack app in your browser — by StackBlitz
Pricing tiers
Aider
OSS (Apache-2.0)
$0 forever. Apache-2.0 licensed. Install via pip. Bring your own LLM API key.
$0 base (usage-based)
LLM token cost (passthrough)
Only cost is your LLM provider bill — Claude Sonnet ~$3/M in, $15/M out; Groq + DeepSeek near-free.
$0 base (usage-based)
Bolt.new
Free
1M tokens/month. 300K tokens/day cap. Public + private projects. 10MB file uploads. Hosting + unlimited DBs.
Free
Pro
$25/month. Starts at 10M tokens/month, no daily cap. No Bolt branding, 100MB uploads, custom domains, SEO support, image AI edit. Rollover tokens.
$25/mo
Teams
$30/member/month. Centralized billing, team access, private NPM registries, design system knowledge.
$30/mo
Enterprise
Custom. SSO, audit logs, dedicated account manager, 24/7 support.
Custom
Free-tier quotas head-to-head
Comparing oss on Aider vs free on Bolt.new.
| Metric | Aider | Bolt.new |
|---|---|---|
| No overlapping quota metrics for these tiers. | ||
Features
Aider · 15 features
- Architect Mode — Large reasoning model plans → small editor model applies.
- Browser UI — Optional Streamlit-based GUI on localhost.
- Conventions File — .aider.conf.yml defines project rules.
- Copy-Paste Mode — Paste web-chat output → aider parses + applies.
- Git-Native Workflow — Each edit = git commit with descriptive message.
- Multi-File Editing — Handles refactors across dozens of files.
- Multi-LLM Support — Claude, GPT, Gemini, DeepSeek, Groq, local.
- Public LLM Benchmarks — Maintains polyglot coding benchmark leaderboard.
- Read-Only Mode — View changes without committing.
- Repo-Map — Automatic project context summarization.
- Terminal-Native UI — Runs in bash/zsh, no IDE required.
- Test-Driven Mode — Runs tests after each edit, auto-fixes failures.
- Vim / Neovim Plugin — Launch aider from editor.
- Voice Coding — Transcribe voice → code.
- VS Code Extension — Launch aider from VS Code.
Bolt.new · 14 features
- Browser Terminal — Real shell in-browser. Run npm install, scripts, etc.
- Deploy to Netlify — One-click deploy to Netlify.
- Deploy to Vercel — One-click deploy to Vercel.
- Design System Knowledge — Team plan: shared design-system context for consistent UI.
- Expo Support — Build React Native/Expo apps too.
- GitHub Export — Push full project to a new GitHub repo.
- Image Input — Upload image/sketch → Bolt generates matching UI.
- Import Existing Project — Upload an existing repo and iterate in Bolt.
- Live Edit + Run — Edit code + hot reload alongside AI agent.
- Private NPM Registries — Team plan: use private packages.
- Prompt to App — Describe app → Bolt scaffolds + codes + runs it in the browser.
- Stripe Integration — Hook up Stripe payments in-chat.
- Supabase Integration — Provision + connect Supabase from chat.
- WebContainer runtime — Node.js + terminal + filesystem running entirely in your browser.
Developer interfaces
| Kind | Aider | Bolt.new |
|---|---|---|
| CLI | aider CLI | — |
| OTHER | Aider Browser UI, .aider.conf.yml, aider.vim / neovim, Aider VS Code Extension | Bolt Web App, GitHub Export, StackBlitz Sync, WebContainer runtime |
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