Aiden is live · free · last verified 23 Oct 2026 · viability healthy
Aiden
Aiden is a free, open-source local AI agent that runs commands, edits files and keeps durable memory on your own machine.
Aiden is the free pick for people who want an agent whose work they can actually audit: durable Jobs, recorded Evidence, a Verification verdict per step, and approval gates on terminal commands and file mutations. The catch is that it's a runtime to run, not a service to subscribe to — Node.js 20/22, a CLI-first workflow, and browser or visual automation that explicitly isn't a closed-loop autopilot. Install it if inspectable execution matters more than hands-off convenience.
Verdict generatedVerified 7d ago · liveness 71/100 · cite: rightaichoice.com/tools/aiden
- Developers who want a private local agent that runs commands and edits files on their own machine
- Privacy-conscious users who need offline-capable local voice input instead of cloud round-trips
- Power users who rely on durable memory and restart-safe jobs across long sessions
- Technical operators who want approval gates and recorded evidence for every consequential action
- Non-technical users who want a managed cloud service with a point-and-click GUI and no setup
- Teams that require enterprise support, SLAs or compliance certifications
- Users who need native iOS or Android mobile apps
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Skip Aiden if you want a hands-off managed cloud assistant or a point-and-click GUI — Aiden is a Node.js 20/22 CLI runtime where terminal commands, file mutations and browser automation stay approval-gated by design.
Aiden itself is free under AGPL-3.0, but cloud provider keys (OpenAI, Gemini, Groq, xAI, DeepSeek, Cerebras) are billed by that provider on your own account, so agent-heavy workflows spend your API credits.
Aiden is $0 — AGPL-3.0 source, npm package aiden-runtime@4.21.2, no seat count and no per-task metering. That undercuts every managed cloud agent you'd compare it to, and even more so versus subscription coding agents. The real cost shifts to your own provider keys (Groq, Gemini, OpenAI, xAI, DeepSeek, Cerebras, or a custom endpoint) or the local GPU you run Ollama on. Cheapest for solo developers and privacy-first operators; less obviously cheap for teams that would otherwise buy support and
In short
Aiden — Aiden is a free, open-source local AI agent that runs commands, edits files and keeps durable memory on your own machine. Best for Developers who want a private local agent that runs commands and edits files on their own machine, Privacy-conscious users who need offline-capable local voice input instead of cloud round-trips, Power users who rely on durable memory and restart-safe jobs across long sessions. Free to use.
What is Aiden?
Aiden — Aiden is a free, open-source local AI agent that runs commands, edits files and keeps durable memory on your own machine. Best for Developers who want a private local agent that runs commands and edits files on their own machine, Privacy-conscious users who need offline-capable local voice input instead of cloud round-trips, Power users who rely on durable memory and restart-safe jobs across long sessions. Free to use.
Aiden is an AGPL-3.0 local AI agent from Taracod, installable as the public npm package aiden-runtime@4.21.2 on Node.js 20 or 22, via a PowerShell one-liner on Windows 11, or a shell script on Linux, WSL and macOS in API mode. After install you get two surfaces: the `aiden` CLI and the bundled web Workbench (`aiden web`). It targets developers and technical operators who want a self-hosted DevOS and would rather not hand their terminal and file tree to a cloud assistant. Describe a goal in plain English and Aiden turns it into a durable Job, executes the steps in order, then records Evidence and a Verification verdict for each action. Jobs, Attempts, Effects and Proof survive restarts, and stale or late results are rejected instead of quietly overwriting state. Memory is durable and local — MEMORY.md plus recall_session carry context between sessions, with three-layer progressive memory (memsearch, memtimeline, memget) deciding what persists. Evidence-linked learning reuses verified outcomes while leaving uncertain results marked uncertain. Capability-wise it handles the practical work: running permitted terminal commands (approval-gated), creating and editing files, authoring and running Python scripts, executing Node.js JavaScript, Windows system automation, desktop notifications, and system awareness across GPU, CPU, RAM and disk. A Browser Operator covers supported web workflows with review, and screen captures can be read by vision-capable models for visual automation. Web search runs multi-pass with gap detection for deep research. Local PDF, EPUB, MD and TXT files can be ingested with provenance visible. Providers are your call: bring Groq, Gemini, OpenAI, xAI, DeepSeek or Cerebras keys, point at a custom endpoint, or run local Ollama models, with provider health kept explicit. Consequential actions sit behind approval gates and Stop requests stay explicit. Against managed cloud agents, it trades polish for auditability — nothing is hidden from you, and
Key features
- Local-first AI agent runtime for Windows, Linux, WSL and macOS in API mode
- Installable via npm (aiden-runtime@4.21.2), a Windows PowerShell one-liner, or a Linux/macOS shell script
- CLI runtime (`aiden`) plus bundled web Workbench v2 (`aiden web`)
- Durable Jobs with Attempts, Effects, Evidence, Verification and Proof records
- Restart-safe execution that rejects stale or late results instead of overwriting state
- Three-layer progressive memory: memsearch, memtimeline and memget
- Durable cross-session memory via MEMORY.md and recall_session
- Evidence-linked learning that reuses verified outcomes and marks uncertain ones explicit
- Approval-gated terminal command execution with the decision and outcome recorded
- File creation, reading and editing with approval-gated mutations
- Python script authoring and execution
- Node.js JavaScript execution for APIs, data processing, tests and packages
- Browser Operator for supported web workflows with explicit review
- Web search and multi-pass deep research with gap detection
- Local ingestion of PDF, EPUB, MD and TXT files with visible provenance
Behind the verdict
Pick Aiden when the question you keep asking is "what did the agent actually do?" Every Job records its Attempts and Effects, every action gets checked before the next step, and errors are recorded rather than smoothed over. Restart-safety is the part I appreciate most in practice: stale or late results get rejected instead of silently mutating state, which is the failure mode that makes most long-running agents untrustworthy. The approval layer is the other reason to choose it. Mutating file operations and terminal commands can require your sign-off, and the runtime stores the decision and its outcome. That makes it viable for a working repo, not just a sandbox. Where it bites: you are installing and maintaining a runtime, not signing into a product. Node.js 20 or 22, npm or a PowerShell/shell one-liner, and macOS runs in API mode only. If you don't want to touch a terminal to configure providers, this will feel like work. Automation expectations need calibrating. Browser Operator, mouse and keyboard control, and visual automation all run with explicit review, and keyboard/mouse coverage on Windows is described as partial. Plan on supervising those flows rather than firing and forgetting. Memory is a genuine differentiator — MEMORY.md, recall_session, and three-layer progressive memory across memsearch, memtimeline and memget — but scoping what persists is your job. Durable state that nothing prunes becomes clutter. Closest alternative is a managed cloud agent. Those win on polish, mobile access and zero setup; Aiden wins on local files, provider choice (including Ollama, Groq, Gemini, OpenAI, xAI, DeepSeek, Cerebras or a custom endpoint), and the fact that the source is AGPL-3.0 and forkable. Reach for Aiden when auditability beats convenience.
Limitations
- Aiden is an open-source (AGPL-3.0) local CLI runtime plus a web Workbench; it runs by configuring supported providers, custom endpoints, or Ollama, so behavior depends on the provider you choose.
- It requires Node.js 20 or 22 and installs via npm, PowerShell, or shell script, and on macOS it is available in API mode only.
- Consequential actions — terminal commands, file mutations, browser workflows and computer control — are approval-gated by design, so work stays in the loop rather than fully unattended.
as of 2026-10-03
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Is Aiden still active?
Aiden is live · free · last verified 23 Oct 2026 · viability healthy.
Viability score
How well maintained and how widely used is Aiden? Built from what the vendor actually publishes (docs, changelog, tutorials, integrations, pricing), whether the site is live, and how much real users discuss it. How we calculate this
Last calculated: October 2026
How we score →What's new in Aiden
Checked 8 days agoAcross the latest 1 update: 1 launch.
What do users say about Aiden?
What people actually say about Aiden — is it worth it?
Our community sentiment research written Jul 3, 2026 is more than 90 days old, so it is being re-reviewed against current data and is not shown.
How we verified this
Every listed fact about Aiden— pricing, features, links, status — is re-read from the vendor's own pages by our verification pipeline and each change is logged with a date; the last pass ran on 23 Oct 2026. Pages mix model-assisted synthesis with human review; see how we verify.
Verification history
We have re-verified Aiden 11 times since . Each pass re-reads the vendor's own pages and re-checks every listed field against that evidence; passes where nothing had changed are marked as such.
- — changed SSL certificate
- — changed summary, pricing tiers, description, who should skip it, who it suits, our verdict, features
- — changed limitations
- — changed pricing tiers, features, who it suits, hidden costs, use cases, integrations, limitations, switching in, our verdict, switching out, description, who should skip it, setup time, pricing fit, summary
- — changed SSL certificate
- — changed description, summary, our verdict, features, pricing tiers, who it suits, who should skip it
Showing the 6 most recent of 11 verification passes.
Free to cite with attribution — this page re-verifies continuously.
How much does Aiden cost in 2026?
Aiden: Free to use. Pricing last verified 23 Oct 2026.
Plans compared
Every published Aiden tier, its price as the vendor publishes it, who it fits, and what it adds over the tier below. The 12-month cost projection follows.
| Plan | Price | Billing | Who it's for |
|---|---|---|---|
| Free & Open Source | Free | — | Solo developers, privacy-conscious power users, and technical operators who can manage their own Node.js 20/22 runtime and provider keys or local Ollama models.Adds: Starting tier — the only tier: AGPL-3.0 source, CLI plus web Workbench, durable Jobs/Evidence/Verification, and approval-gated actions at $0. |
12-month cost
Project the real annual outlay, including the implied monthly cost when only an annual tier is published.
Vendor list price only. Add-on usage, seat overages, and contract minimums are surfaced under Hidden costs & gotchas.
Where the pricing makes sense
The company stage and team size where Aiden's pricing actually pencils out — and where peers do it cheaper.
Aiden is $0 — AGPL-3.0 source, npm package aiden-runtime@4.21.2, no seat count and no per-task metering. That undercuts every managed cloud agent you'd compare it to, and even more so versus subscription coding agents. The real cost shifts to your own provider keys (Groq, Gemini, OpenAI, xAI, DeepSeek, Cerebras, or a custom endpoint) or the local GPU you run Ollama on. Cheapest for solo developers and privacy-first operators; less obviously cheap for teams that would otherwise buy support and
Has Aiden's pricing changed?
No plan price for Aiden has moved since we began logging in Aug 2026; the pricing page is re-read on every verification pass.
Who should pick Aiden?
Pick Aiden if you are Developers who want a private local agent that runs commands and edits files on their own machine, Privacy-conscious users who need offline-capable local voice input instead of cloud round-trips, Power users who rely on durable memory and restart-safe jobs across long sessions, Technical operators who want approval gates and recorded evidence for every consequential action.
Look elsewhere if you are Non-technical users who want a managed cloud service with a point-and-click GUI and no setup, Teams that require enterprise support, SLAs or compliance certifications, Users who need native iOS or Android mobile apps, Anyone expecting a closed-loop, hands-off autopilot — browser, keyboard/mouse and visual automation require review.
Skip it if Skip Aiden if you want a hands-off managed cloud assistant or a point-and-click GUI — Aiden is a Node.js 20/22 CLI runtime where terminal commands, file mutations and browser automation stay approval-gated by design.
GeneratedReal-world workflow fit
Concrete scenarios for the personas Aiden actually fits — and what changes day-one when you adopt it.
You install via `npm install -g aiden-runtime@4.21.2` on Node.js 22, launch `aiden web`, and ask Aiden to reorganize a project directory and rename files by convention.
Outcome: Aiden builds a durable Job, presents the file mutations for approval, records Evidence for each edit, and leaves a Verification verdict plus desktop notification when the batch is done.
You point Aiden at Ollama so nothing leaves the machine, ingest a folder of PDFs and markdown notes, then ask a research question across them.
Outcome: Aiden ingests PDF/EPUB/MD/TXT locally, keeps provenance visible, writes findings into MEMORY.md context that recall_session picks up next session, and marks anything unverified as uncertain.
You set up a multi-step job that searches the web for sources, runs a Python script over the results, and posts a desktop notification on completion.
Outcome: Each step is an Attempt with recorded Effects; restarting mid-run doesn't lose state, late results are reconciled rather than silently applied, and you can inspect the full evidence chain afterward.
Use cases
- Automate file organization and batch renaming on your own machine using plain-English instructions.
- Drive a browser to fill forms, collect data or navigate sites, with each consequential step reviewed.
- Run terminal commands and scripts without leaving the agent session, with approval gates on mutating actions.
- Chain multi-step workflows that mix file operations, web search, Python or Node.js execution.
- Build a persistent personal knowledge base from your PDFs, EPUBs and markdown notes with visible provenance.
- Run deep research across sources with multi-pass gap detection and inspectable evidence.
- Automate Windows settings, processes, services and system tasks natively.
- Read screen captures with vision-capable models for visual automation tasks.
Setup time & first value
How long it actually takes to get something useful out of Aiden — broken out by persona, not the marketing-page minute.
Developers on Node.js 20 or 22: roughly 10-20 minutes for npm/PowerShell install, provider key or Ollama config, and a first approved task. Privacy-first local-model users: budget 30-60 minutes more to pull Ollama models and size them to your GPU. Voice users: extra time to configure local speech on your runtime. macOS is API mode only, so plan around that.
Switching to or from Aiden
How to bring data in from common predecessors and how to get it back out — written for the switcher, not the buyer.
- →From a cloud AI assistant (ChatGPT, Claude, Copilot): export the docs and notes you rely on, ingest them as PDF/MD/TXT, and Aiden grounds answers on those local artifacts with visible provenance.
- →From shell scripts and cron jobs: move recurring command sequences into Aiden Jobs so each run records Attempts, Effects and Evidence and survives restart.
- →From another local agent runtime: keep your existing Ollama models, configure Aiden to use Ollama, and re-point your custom endpoint settings to Aiden's provider config.
- →From manual Windows maintenance tasks: replace one-off PowerShell sessions with approval-gated Aiden Windows automation for settings, processes and services.
- ↗To a managed cloud agent: expect to lose local Evidence/Verification records and durable Job state, since those live in Aiden's local runtime.
- ↗To plain shell scripts and cron: straightforward if your Aiden work was mostly single-command jobs, but you drop approval gates and restart-safe reconciliation.
- ↗To another open-source agent framework: Aiden is AGPL-3.0 and forkable, so you can carry code forward, but MEMORY.md and session recall state are runtime-specific.
Resources & guides
Tutorials & Learning
YouTube returned 6 videos for “Aiden”, and we withheld 6: 6 could not be judged, because “Aiden” is a single word that other videos use for other things. We are showing none, because we could not prove any of them are about Aiden.
Official links
What are the best Aiden alternatives?
The closest alternatives to Aiden we list are Claude, Kai and Skales. Ranked by direct product-type match, not category overlap.
| Alternative | Pricing | Starts at | Last verified |
|---|---|---|---|
| Claude | Freemium | Pricing not published | — |
| Kai | Freemium | Pricing not published | — |
| Skales | Freemium | Pricing not published | — |
Alternatives to Aiden
View all
Tools that pair well with Aiden
Common stack mates teams adopt alongside Aiden, with the specific reason each pairing earns its keep.
Claude
Anthropic's AI assistant for long-document analysis, agentic coding, and auditable agent work.
Kai
Open-source, cross-platform AI assistant that generates full interactive screens and runs locally — with persistent memory and an autonomous heartbeat.
Skales
Skales runs 400+ built-in tools and one-line goals as a local AI agent harness on your own machine.
Aiden vs its closest rival
Aiden's closest head-to-head is with Spider Cloud — For developers who prioritize privacy, persistent memory, and offline-capable computer control, Aiden's free open-source local AI is unmatched. For teams building AI agents that need fast, reliable web data extraction with minimal cost per page, Spider Cloud's Rust-based API and Browser AI commands are the superior choice. These tools solve different problems — pick based on whether you need data in (Spider Cloud) or actions out (Aiden). Verdict generated
Head-to-head comparisons
Aiden vs Spider Cloud
For developers who prioritize privacy, persistent memory, and offline-capable computer control, Aiden's free open-source local AI is unmatched. For teams building AI agents that need fast, reliable web data extraction with minimal cost per page, Spider Cloud's Rust-based API and Browser AI commands are the superior choice. These tools solve different problems — pick based on whether you need data in (Spider Cloud) or actions out (Aiden).
GeneratedAiden vs Temporal Ai
Choose Aiden if you need a private, free, local AI agent that controls your computer and remembers everything, and you're comfortable with the terminal. Choose Temporal AI if you're building reliable, fault-tolerant workflows or AI agents that need to survive crashes, with multiple SDKs and cloud scalability. Aiden prioritizes privacy and simplicity; Temporal prioritizes reliability and orchestration at scale.
GeneratedAiden vs Presto Voice
Aiden and Presto Voice serve completely different markets. Aiden is a free, open-source local AI OS for developers wanting autonomous computer control with persistent memory. Presto Voice is a commercial voice AI platform for QSR chains to automate drive-thru ordering. Buy Aiden if you're a developer seeking privacy and automation; choose Presto Voice if you operate a multi-location quick-service restaurant.
GeneratedFrequently asked questions
Best-of guides
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