Tools for
Conviviality

Home / Coding agents / Cline

Cline

An open-source coding agent for your editor, terminal or desktop that asks before it changes anything.

Instead of GitHub Copilot

M · ToolOpen sourceFreeBring your own model
github.com/cline/cline
Screenshot of the Cline website

Screenshot from github.com/cline/cline, taken 2026-10-30, shown to help you recognise the tool. It belongs to its maker. Ask us to remove it.

Giving an agent the keys to your project feels a bit like lending your car to a teenager, so it helps that Cline is built around asking first. It can edit files and run terminal commands across a VS Code extension, a JetBrains plugin, a command line tool and a desktop app for Mac and Windows, and the page lists Ollama and LM Studio for local models next to any OpenAI-compatible endpoint.

Cline scores a 5 on lock-in and self-direction, a 4 on longevity and delivery and a 3 on footprint and power.

The code is Apache-2.0 and the copyright line reads Cline Bot Inc, so a company makes it, and the page states no price and no funding. The surface area is wide, with connectors for Telegram, Slack, Discord, Google Chat, WhatsApp and Linear on top of the editors, and that costs a point on Footprint and another on Power. We found no telemetry statement on the page we read.

    What stands out

  • Edits files and runs commands in your editor, terminal or desktop, with local models supported
  • Apache-2.0, made by a company called Cline Bot Inc
  • A wide range of surfaces, from JetBrains to chat connectors
Visit Cline
Do you make Cline? Get the badge for your site

This badge reports a dated review. It is not a certification and it costs nothing. Link it to this page and leave the numbers alone: the image always shows the current score.

For dark backgrounds, use cline-dark.svg in place of cline-light.svg.

For comparison, we also reviewed GitHub Copilot (15/30) and OpenAI Codex (20/30) and Claude Code (17/30) as a benchmark.

Other tools for “code with an ai agent i control”