Elva vs tterm: Features, Pricing & Which Is Better (2026)

A side-by-side comparison of Elva and tterm — features, pricing, and ideal use cases — to help you decide which AI tool fits your workflow.

Elva

Theneo

Freemium

Reads your repositories to discover every API, scores and governs them, then exposes them to developers and AI agents via hosted MCP servers.

Spec-Free API Discovery: Elva scans repository code directly to find endpoints and generates OpenAPI 3.1 as output, so no existing spec is needed to start.
Endpoint Scoring: Every collection is graded on design, developer experience, AI readiness, security and performance, with the weakest collection surfaced first.
AI Fix Pass: A one-click agent writes missing descriptions from code, types response schemas and documents auth, then rescores the collection.
API Contracts: Per-audience contracts pin the exact endpoints and fields a partner, internal team, public developer or MCP client receives, excluding PII and internal fields.
Breaking Change Enforcement: Each commit is diffed against published contracts, showing the schema diff, affected consumers and tools, and blocking publish by policy.
Hosted MCP Servers: Contracts generate MCP servers hosted behind Elva's gateway with OAuth2, scoped keys, per-tool authorization and exportable call logs.
MCP Playground and Agent Feedback: Test the server with a live model, then read the complaints agents file about confusing or failing tools, scored back into the catalog.
Multi-Target Publishing: One approved contract ships as OpenAPI spec, Theneo docs, MCP server, Postman collection and a typed TypeScript SDK in sync.

API Inventory Audit: Discover undocumented or forgotten endpoints across a large codebase and get a ranked list of what to fix first.
Agent Enablement: Expose an internal service to Claude, Cursor or ChatGPT as a governed MCP server instead of hand-writing tool wrappers.
Partner Integration Safety: Publish a restricted contract to an external partner and have Elva block commits that would break their integration.
PII Scoping: Keep customer emails and internal ops annotations out of a public or agent-facing surface while the same endpoints serve them internally.
Zombie Endpoint Retirement: Prove no active consumer references an endpoint before deleting it, using contract and call-log evidence.
Enterprise Security Review: Satisfy SOC 2, ISO 27001 and GDPR questions and wire agent access into an existing SSO and SCIM identity provider.
Documentation Drift Control: Keep docs, SDKs and Postman collections regenerated from code on every merge instead of maintained by hand.

Tanay Gondil

Free

Free macOS workspace that unites a terminal, a real Chromium browser, and Claude Code in one hot-reloadable, self-building window.

Self-Building Workspace: ⌘K invokes Claude Code on tterm's own source and hot-reloads the running app so you can extend the tool from inside itself.
Row-Per-Project Layout: Every project gets its own row containing an explorer, a Claude Code session, and a file viewer, so multiple projects stack side by side.
Embedded Real Browser: ⌘B opens a Chromium tab inside tterm that inherits your Chrome cookies, bookmarks, and history — favicons and all.
Diff-Only Review: ⌘G opens a hunk-level diff reviewer for staging and committing changes; there's no editor by design, so you review instead of retype.
Command-Palette Shortcuts: ⌘K palette, ⌘O projects, ⌘P quick open, ⌘⇧F search, ⌘F find, ⌘⇧M for CLAUDE.md, and more make navigation keyboard-first.
Terminal-Respecting Key Handling: Only ⌘-chords are intercepted by tterm; every ⌃-key passes through to the pty untouched, so terminal apps keep working.
Privacy by Default: No account, no telemetry, and no network calls home — the app is a single ad-hoc-signed hobby build.

AI-Paired Coding: Keep Claude Code, your terminal, and docs in one window while pairing with an LLM on a project.
Multi-Project Juggling: Stack several concurrent projects as rows so you can jump between them without alt-tabbing.
Doc-Grounded Development: Use the embedded browser to keep API docs open next to your terminal and diff without leaving the app.
Focused Diff Review: Review and stage AI-generated changes hunk by hunk before committing, rather than editing in place.
Hobbyist macOS Tinkering: Extend the tool itself from inside via Claude Code, treating tterm as a live playground.