Aider is an open-source AI pair programmer in your terminal; o8 is a multi-agent control room with a review gate. One agent at your prompt, versus a governed fleet.
Aideris an open-source command-line tool that pairs an LLM with your local git repo: it proposes edits and commits them as you go, with you driving each step in the terminal. It’s lightweight, single-agent, and tightly coupled to git.
o8 is a local-first macOS control room for autonomous engineering. One orchestrator dispatches a fleet of coding agents — each in its own isolated git worktree — and a governance layer reviews every diff. Nothing merges unreviewed, and nothing risky merges without your sign-off. It runs on your own machine, against your own model keys, and works with Claude, Codex, Gemini, and opencode through one adapter.
Both are local and both lean on git — but the shape is different. Aider is one agent you prompt step by step. o8 runs many agents in parallel, each isolated in its own worktree, with a merge gate that rebases, typechecks, and locks the head SHA before anything lands in order. Add the audit trail, conflict detection, and organizational memory, and o8 is less a pair programmer than a room you run.
Aider is a great single-agent CLI when you want to stay close to each change. o8 is for when you want a fleet working at once without losing the review step. Start with what o8 is.