Did anybody switch away from Aider for a compelling alternative? What was the feature?

I was a #1 aider stan for months, but ultimately switched to Claude Code.

For me it was (1) lack of MCP (2) excessive hand-holding required (3) availability of the Max plan meant I wouldn't have to monitor cost.

Claude Code's skill curve felt slightly longer than aider's, and had a higher ceiling.

I think if I were more cost-sensitive, I would give Aider another whirl, or Gemini CLI (based on what I've heard, I haven't used it yet).

I still like aider but multi-step agentic flows are very useful so I mostly use codex and claude nowadays. If I want to do very specific edits I use aider.

I don't find multiple agents helpful at all for coding, here you can see i am running a modded aider and single shot most features, https://www.reddit.com/r/ChatGPTCoding/comments/1nh7bu1/3_ph...

I also use claude or codex but i do not find them much useful for what i do.

Where does regular Aider fall short?

bruh, i posted a video for you to see where it falls short. If you are an aider user you can tell based on video what it can or cannot do.

Why not Gemini CLI tho?

It doesn't have a working plan mode.

If you ask it to plan something or suggest something. It'll write the suggestion and dive right into implementation with zero hesitation.

It's not my experience, but then I have a „living” GEMINI.md doc where I add/clarify/tweak what to do and what not to do. And it's possible the initial revision already contained the correct spell :)

gemini cli is such a trash it has ruined gemini 2.5 pro model's reputation, now people think it's incapable of writing good code.

True. In my experience, it has been good to use for second opinions and code reviews. Usually in CC/Codex via an MCP like zen.

Do not let Gemini CLI write code for you. You will find out the hard way

it sucks.

The opposite of my experience, but okay.

I'll give it another try, the gemini models themselves are great for me, tried the tool when it came out, didn't gel with it.