compare / zeroshot
Aethereum vs ZeroShot
ZeroShot records your team's AI coding sessions into its cloud, extracts knowledge and skills from the transcripts, and scores developers against each other, at $100 per user per month behind a waitlist. Aethereum starts from the opposite premise: transcripts contain your code, so they stay on your machine. Usage syncs as numbers only when a room opts in, session handoffs move end-to-end encrypted, and there are no rankings, by stance rather than by omission.
compared here: ZeroShot session capture, skills, usage insights, PR compliance
The honest comparison
Capability by capability. Green means yes, amber means partial, a dash means no. Where ZeroShot is genuinely stronger, the table says so.
| capability | Aethereum | ZeroShot |
|---|---|---|
| Cross-machine coordination | yesagents on different machines share one brain | partialsessions sync to their cloud; no agent-to-agent coordination |
| Cross-developer awareness | yesyour agent sees a teammate's uncommitted change | partiala shared session repository, not live agent awareness |
| Works with any MCP agent | yesClaude Code, Cursor, Codex, anything MCP | partialcaptures popular CLIs; coordination is not an open MCP surface |
| Shared interface contracts | yesdeclare_contract, versioned + dependency-aware | nono interface-contract concept |
| Contract negotiation | yespropose, push back, finalize a shape change | nono negotiation; skills are pushed via weekly PRs |
| Collision alert before merge | yeswarned the moment a dependency changes | noskill compliance on PRs, not interface-collision alerts |
| Operator directives | yesone standing order pins to every agent's context | nono standing operator directive |
| Soft-lock claims | yesclaim a file, overlap is flagged to others | nono claims |
| Tickets / work assignment | yesassign tickets to agents from the cockpit | nono tickets |
| Durable team memory | yesdecisions + plan persist across sessions + machines | yesper-session extractions: decisions, blockers, conventions |
| Live dashboard | yeswatch the whole fleet coordinate in real time | yeslive sessions view; some dashboards labelled Illustrative |
| CLI cockpit | yesaethereum mission to steer from the terminal | partialdesktop app + menu bar, not a CLI cockpit |
| GitHub / Slack / Linear | partialintegrations are early | partialPR compliance board + weekly skill PRs |
| MCP-native | yesthe whole surface is MCP tools | noclosed extraction pipeline, not MCP |
| Source code stays private | yesby default only the interfaces an agent publishes leave the machine; opt-in code sharing is end-to-end encrypted, so the server holds only ciphertext it cannot read | noextraction requires server-readable transcripts; no published encryption model |
| Zero-install / quick setup | yesone command, about thirty seconds | nowaitlist + demo call to start |
| Pricing | yesfree to start, no card | no$100 per user per month, free tier capped at 3 members |
where aethereum is stronger
- Transcripts never leave your machine; the extraction happens locally (aethereum distill).
- Session handoff between machines is end-to-end encrypted; the server stores only ciphertext.
- Free during beta, accountless start, no waitlist or demo call.
- Team-level metrics only. No leaderboards, no per-person scores, ever.
- Coordination rail underneath: shared interface contracts, negotiation, pre-merge collision alerts.
where zeroshot is stronger
- A polished managed pipeline: capture, extraction, and knowledge curation run as a service with no local tooling to think about.
- Automatic per-session extractions (decisions, blockers, conventions) out of the box.
- A packaged starter-skills library and weekly skill-update PRs.
When to use which
use aethereum: Use Aethereum when your sessions touch code you would not paste into a third-party cloud, when you want the coordination rail (contracts, alerts, handoff) and honest team-level numbers without ranking developers.
use zeroshot: Use ZeroShot if you want a fully managed capture-and-insights service, are comfortable with transcripts being readable server-side, and the per-seat price works for your team.
Common questions
Does Aethereum upload my transcripts like ZeroShot does?
No. The session index and every scan run locally. The only session-related things that can leave your machine are numbers-only usage rollups a room explicitly opts into, and end-to-end encrypted handoff blobs the server cannot read.
Does Aethereum rank developers?
No, and it will not. Metrics are totals for the room and a private view for you. DORA's 2025 research is the reason: individual AI-usage metrics mislead, and ranking developers on them makes engineering worse, not better.
What does Aethereum cost compared to ZeroShot?
ZeroShot's published price is $100 per user per month, with a free tier capped at 3 members, behind a waitlist. Aethereum is free during beta with an accountless start; billing stays off.
Can I get skills from my sessions like ZeroShot's extraction?
Yes, locally. aethereum distill scans your indexed sessions for repeated friction and drafts SKILL.md files with your own agent. Nothing publishes without a preview and your explicit confirmation.
Make your agents one team.
Free, no signup, no card. One command, about thirty seconds. Your agents share contracts, claim what they touch, and warn each other before merge.
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