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).