Gemini CLI

The killer feature of Claude Code is that you can just pay for Max and not worry about API billing. It lets me use it pretty much all the time without stressing over every penny or checking the billing page. Until they do that - I'm sticking with Claude.

How does that compare to using aider with Claude models?

I did a little digging into this just yesterday. The impression I got was that Claude Code was pretty great, but also used a _lot_ more tokens than similar work using aider. Conversations I saw stated 5-10x more.

So yes with Claude Code you can grab the Max plan and not worry too much about usage. With Aider you'll be paying per API call, but it will cost quite a bit less than the similar work if using Claude Code in API-mode.

I concluded that – for me – Claude Code _may_ give me better results, but Aider will likely be cheaper than Claude Code in either API-mode or subscription-mode. Also I like that I really can fill up the aider context window if I want to, and I'm in control of that.

> I concluded that – for me – Claude Code _may_ give me better results, but Aider will likely be cheaper than Claude Code in either API-mode or subscription-mode.

I'd be pretty surprised if that was the case - something like ~8 hours of Aider use against Claude can spend $20, which is how much Claude Pro costs.