Can I vibecode Aldena?
KINDA · weekend projectOne room's worth of this is a weekend now that the agent loop ships as an SDK: five role-scoped agents in a Docker sandbox, a manager that hands work down, a prompt before anything destructive, a pull request at the end. What does not fall out of that weekend is the rest of it. A server per project that somebody else patches and meters, ten OAuth integrations that stay authorized, memory that survives the run, and a screen where the person paying for the work can watch it and approve it. Build the room. The building around the room is the subscription.
Build me a local team of AI coding agents that ships pull requests, to replace Aldena. Requirements: - A CLI plus a local web page: Node 24 + Express + better-sqlite3, server-rendered with a little vanilla JS. `agents run "add rate limiting"` starts a run and the page on localhost:7070 streams what every agent is doing. - Agents are rows in SQLite: name, role, instructions, model. Seed five (manager, analyst, backend, frontend, reviewer) from a roles.json I can edit, each calling the Anthropic API with the key from .env. - Only the manager takes my request. It hands work to at most 3 agents per turn and stops at depth 5. Every hand-off, reply and tool call is a row in SQLite so I can read a run back a week later. - File edits and shell commands run inside one Docker container per project, mounting only that project's checkout. Never on my host, never two agents in the same container at once. - A tools.json of allow / ask / deny per tool. On ask the run blocks and the web page shows the exact command with Approve and Reject buttons; on deny the tool is not in the schema the agent sees at all. - Memory is two Markdown files loaded at the start of a run and appended to at the end: .agents/project.md that all of them read, .agents/NAME.md private to one agent. Cap each at 100 lines and make the agent delete a line before it writes a new one. - A run ends with a branch, a commit and `gh pr create`. No agent gets the merge command, that stays mine. - Out of scope: multi-user accounts, seat billing, and OAuth into Jira, Linear or Slack. Do not provision servers, the Docker container is the whole runtime. - No accounts, no telemetry, everything on my machine except the model calls. Secrets in .env. - Include a README with setup, where the SQLite file lives, and how to authenticate `gh` before the first run.
$ open in your agent (prompt prefilled, you press enter) or copy it raw
prompt copied. want to know what dies next week?
new verdicts + top votes, weekly. free. one-click out.
The agents are the cheap part. People pay for the machine the work runs on, the credentials that are still valid on Monday, and a record of what was approved that they can show the client who is paying for it.
xa machine per project that someone else provisions, patches and bills by the hour
xconnected GitHub, Bitbucket, Jira, Linear, Notion, Slack, Drive, Gmail, Sentry and Vercel, and the upkeep behind those tokens
xmemory that outlives the run, private per agent and shared per project
xa screen a non-engineer can watch the run in and approve from
xone prepaid balance metering every model and every server hour
Don't feel like building it? These folks already made it free.
OpenHandsAgents that work in a container instead of on your laptop, with the UI, the CLI and the sandbox in the box. You supply the container host and the model bill.open source↗
ClineThe approval gate as an editor extension: it plans, then asks before each edit and each command. One agent, your repo, your keys.open source↗
gooseA desktop agent that spawns subagents and drives your own tools through MCP. Vendor-neutral under the Linux Foundation, which is more than most of this field can say.open source↗all 4 free alternatives to Aldena →· no votes, no pay-to-list · just what's real
Aldena pricing
starter$99/mo · monthly per active member, plus prepaid usage credits · $1,188/yr
free tierThe free plan is the whole feature set at 2 members, 2 rooms, 5 agents per room and 3 connectors per room; model usage and server hours still come out of prepaid credits.
verified 2026-08-12 · source ↗
Is Aldena free?
The free plan is the whole feature set at 2 members, 2 rooms, 5 agents per room and 3 connectors per room; model usage and server hours still come out of prepaid credits. Paid is Starter at $99/mo (checked 2026-08-12).
Can I vibecode Aldena?
Kinda. The core of Aldena is buildable in a weekend with the prompt on this page, but there are real gaps: a machine per project that someone else provisions, patches and bills by the hour, connected GitHub, Bitbucket, Jira, Linear, Notion, Slack, Drive, Gmail, Sentry and Vercel, and the upkeep behind those tokens. Read the honest list above before committing.
How much does Aldena cost?
Aldena costs about $99/month (Starter, checked 2026-08-12), which is $1188 per year.
What do I lose by replacing Aldena?
Honestly: a machine per project that someone else provisions, patches and bills by the hour; connected GitHub, Bitbucket, Jira, Linear, Notion, Slack, Drive, Gmail, Sentry and Vercel, and the upkeep behind those tokens; memory that outlives the run, private per agent and shared per project; a screen a non-engineer can watch the run in and approve from; one prepaid balance metering every model and every server hour. If any of those are load-bearing for you, keep paying.
Is there an open-source alternative to Aldena?
Yes: OpenHands (Agents that work in a container instead of on your laptop, with the UI, the CLI and the sandbox in the box. You supply the container host and the model bill.) Cline (The approval gate as an editor extension: it plans, then asks before each edit and each command. One agent, your repo, your keys.) goose (A desktop agent that spawns subagents and drives your own tools through MCP. Vendor-neutral under the Linux Foundation, which is more than most of this field can say.) All 4 curated free alternatives are at canivibecodeit.com/aldena/alternatives. The prompt is for when you want it exactly your way.