Cline
Cline
An open-source agent in your editor where you pay only for the model.
Updated
The read
Cline is the honest option. The agent itself is open source and free, and your bill is whatever inference you use, which removes both the vendor margin and the lock-in, since the model choice stays yours. For developers who want an agent in their editor without renting one, this is the answer, and the size of its community suggests plenty agree. What you give up is the polish and the account management a commercial product would wrap around it.
Where it shines
- Open source, so the agent's actual behaviour is inspectable
- You pay for inference only, with no vendor margin stacked on top
- Model choice is yours, which means no lock-in later
Worth knowing first
- You manage your own API keys and your own spend
- Thin team and enterprise features next to commercial rivals
Index score
81.5
Provisional. This score is read from the product's public capability, not from the one-prompt rebuild the fully reviewed entries went through, so treat it as a placing rather than a verdict.
- Rank
- 04 of 54
- Builds
- Tools
- Category
- Coding agent
- Output
- Terminal commands and multi-file edits in your editor
- Pricing
- Free tier
- Best for
- An agent you control, at inference cost
Scores are our own editorial judgement, weighted craft 30, speed 25, control 25 and value 20.
Compare it with
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