Copilot alternative — full agent harness
Aexol is an always-on coding agent harness with credit-based billing. It's not autocomplete — you install Spectral on your machines and drive the agent from any browser tab: it edits files, runs shell commands, and works with Git. Copilot has agent mode too; the difference is where the agent runs and how it's metered.
HONEST COMPARISON
Where Aexol differs from GitHub Copilot
Copilot has an agent mode — this is a fair, three-axis comparison of where the two actually diverge.
| Dimension | Aexol | GitHub Copilot |
|---|---|---|
| Agent harness architecture | Full agent harness on your machines: the agent edits files, runs shell commands, and works with Git — with sessions, tools, and subagents. | Agent mode available in IDE + cloud agent, but autocomplete-first workflow centered around IDE sessions. |
| Live logic tracking | The agent maintains one readable logic file per project (logic.aexol), auto-refreshed at turn end, viewable as a live graph at /logic. | No equivalent; context provided through IDE/chat. |
| Where the agent runs | On your machines via a relay — code and messages stay local; drive it from any browser tab, no SSH or port forwarding. EU-only hosting, no training on your data. | Agent mode in the IDE and cloud agent on GitHub's infrastructure. |
TRANSPARENT PRICING
API price comparison — pay per token
We compare pay-per-token API list prices — not consumer subscription plans. Spectral rates are effective rates from the Pro plan; competitor rates are public API list prices.
| Model | $/1M input | $/1M output | Context window | Output speed | Output vs Flash Fast |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Spectral Flash FastSpectral | $0.149 | $0.447 | 1,300,000 | ~120 tok/s | 1× (baseline) |
| Spectral FlashSpectral | $0.104 | $0.209 | 1,000,000 | ~30 tok/s | 0.5× |
| Spectral ProSpectral | $0.3725 | $0.6705 | 1,000,000 | ~30 tok/s | 1.5× |
| GPT-5.5OpenAI | $5.00 | $30.00 | 1,050,000 | — | 67.1× |
| GPT-4oOpenAI | $2.50 | $10.00 | 128,000 | — | 22.4× |
| Claude Sonnet 4.5Anthropic | $3.00 | $15.00 | — | — | 33.6× |
| Claude Haiku 4.5Anthropic | $1.00 | $5.00 | — | — | 11.2× |
| Claude Opus 4.1Anthropic | $15.00 | $75.00 | — | — | 167.8× |
| Gemini 2.5 FlashGoogle | $0.30 | $2.50 | 1,048,576 | — | 5.6× |
| DeepSeek V4 ProDeepSeek | $0.66 | $1.98 | 1,048,576 | — | 4.4× |
We compare pay-per-token API list prices — not consumer subscription plans. Spectral rates are effective rates from the Pro plan: $149/mo includes 10,000 credits, so one credit costs $0.0149 — Spectral Flash Fast consumes 10 credits per 1M input tokens ($0.149), 30 credits per 1M output tokens ($0.447), and 5 credits per 1M cached input tokens ($0.0745). Competitor figures are public pay-per-token API list prices (models.dev sync 2026-08-18; Claude models from anthropic.com/pricing). 'Output vs Flash Fast' shows how many times Flash Fast's output price fits into the row's output price — above 1× means Flash Fast output is cheaper.
Output speed is measured on Spectral production inference (approximate output tokens per second). Competitor API throughput varies by provider and load and is not shown.
Aexol's contrast
Aexol uses credit-based billing — generation is metered and billed through Stripe, with per-project usage you can cap. There are no per-seat fees, and inference is routed to the LLM provider you already use.
TWO WORKFLOWS
Autocomplete-first vs. agent harness
Different tools optimize for different units of work. Copilot optimizes for the next token; Aexol optimizes for the whole feature.
Autocomplete-first workflow
Suggestions appear inline as you type. Each session is a conversation; the context lives in the IDE.
Unit of work: the next line. Metered by tokens and credits.
Agent harness workflow
You chat, the agent works on your machine. No SSH, no port forwarding — drive it from any browser tab.
"Add a login flow with tests"Unit of work: the whole task, on your machine. Credit-based billing, metered per project.
FAQ
Questions about switching
Doesn't GitHub Copilot already have agent mode?
Yes, Copilot has agent mode in VS Code and a cloud agent. Aexol differs by running an always-on agent on your machines: install Spectral, run `spectral serve`, and drive the agent from any browser tab — no SSH, no port forwarding. It edits files, runs shell commands, and works with Git, with sessions, tools, and subagents, rather than making incremental chat-based edits in the IDE.
Is Aexol cheaper than Copilot?
We compare pay-per-token API list prices — not consumer subscription plans. Spectral Flash Fast runs at $0.149 per 1M input tokens and $0.447 per 1M output tokens. For reference, GPT-5.5 lists at $5.00/$30.00 per 1M and Gemini 2.5 Flash at $0.30/$2.50 per 1M. See the API price comparison table above for the full breakdown, including context windows.
Can I use Aexol alongside Copilot?
Yes. Aexol runs an always-on coding agent on your machines; Copilot assists with inline edits in the IDE. They serve different parts of the workflow — Aexol is the agent harness for whole tasks, Copilot is the editing assistant inside the IDE.
How does Aexol keep my code private?
The agent runs on your machine via a relay: your browser talks to the Aexol relay, which routes messages to `spectral serve` on your hardware — the relay never sees your code or prompts. Aexol is also hosted in the EU and does not train on your data.
What does Aexol track while the agent works?
The agent maintains one readable logic file per project — logic.aexol — that mirrors your business logic (types, enums, roles, workflows) and auto-refreshes at turn end. You can view it as a live graph at /logic. Copilot has no equivalent — its context lives in the IDE and chat.
Put an agent on your machine
The agent ships full implementations on your machines — files edited, commands run, Git kept in sync. Credit-based billing, per-project usage caps, EU-only hosting.