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Cline

Open-source coding agent that asks before it edits or runs, with any modelOpen source

About Cline

Cline is an open-source coding agent that edits across files and runs terminal commands, each step able to wait for human approval. One runtime, the Cline SDK, drives the VS Code extension, JetBrains plugin, CLI, desktop app and browser-based Cloud Agents. As of 2026-10-26 the extension mainline is at v4.1.26, released 2026-10-26 17:06 (UTC+8), and the beta desktop line is at desktop-v0.0.49, released 2026-10-26 12:49 (UTC+8). Individuals pay only for model usage or bring their own keys; ClinePass costs $9.99 a month. The vendor cites 11M+ developers (as reported by the vendor).

EditorialUpdated 9 min read

The Cline interface

What problem it solves

Cline hands landing a change across several files, running tests and fixing the errors to an agent. It reads the project structure first, works out how the files relate, makes coordinated edits across them, and watches linter and compiler errors as it goes. Each file edit and each terminal command can wait for human approval, or auto-approve lets it run on its own.

It ships without a model. Inference comes from Cline's own usage-billed provider, a ClinePass subscription, or keys for Anthropic, OpenAI, Google, OpenRouter, AWS Bedrock and other providers; local models through Ollama or LM Studio also work.

Several product lines ship from the same cline/cline repository, each with its own version numbers:

  • Extension mainline (VS Code extension, GitHub tags vX): as of 2026-10-26 the latest is v4.1.26, released 2026-10-26 17:06 (UTC+8). v4.0.0, released 2026-06-27 04:15 (UTC+8), moved task execution onto the shared Cline SDK runtime. The earliest extension release in the repository is v1.0.4, 2024-07-28 09:14 (UTC+8).
  • Desktop line (GitHub tags desktop-vX): the latest is desktop-v0.0.49, released 2026-10-26 12:49 (UTC+8), and the website still labels it beta. The first public build, desktop-v0.0.2, came out 2026-07-22 08:08 (UTC+8) under the name Cline Code, for macOS only; Windows installers start with desktop-v0.0.20, released 2026-08-28 09:33 (UTC+8), and Linux packages with desktop-v0.0.35, released 2026-09-24 16:34 (UTC+8).
  • The CLI (tags cli-vX) is at cli-v3.0.74, released 2026-10-26 12:03 (UTC+8); the SDK (tags sdk/sdk/vX) is at v0.2.0, released 2026-10-26 11:34 (UTC+8).
  • The JetBrains plugin is closed source and not released on GitHub; JetBrains Marketplace lists 2.0.8, uploaded 2026-10-16 16:06 (UTC+8).

The extension and desktop lines ship separately and change at different times. v4.1.25 made Gemini 4 Argon the model the Cline provider uses with no model chosen, and began a gradual rollout of Cloud sessions; desktop-v0.0.48, released 2026-10-17, made Claude Sonnet 5.5 the Cline provider's default again, and the extension mainline did the same only in v4.1.26, released 2026-10-26.

The publisher is Cline Bot Inc., the contracting entity in the terms of service. Saoud Rizwan's GitHub bio reads "founder @cline", and the account has the most commits in the repository. According to the official blog of 2026-01-30, Saoud Rizwan built the first demo in July 2024 for an Anthropic hackathon, the project started with one person, and the team had grown past 35 people by then (as reported by the vendor).

Every file edit and terminal command requires your approval, so you stay in control of what actually changes.

Cline README

Core capabilities

Plan first, then act. In Plan mode Cline only reads code, asks questions and lays out an approach; it edits files and runs commands only after a switch to Act mode.

Changes can be rolled back. In VS Code and JetBrains every edit appears as a diff. Checkpoints live in a separate shadow Git repository that takes a snapshot after each tool call, so the project's own Git history is untouched and even untracked files can be restored.

Approval is granular. Auto-approve has separate toggles for reading project files, editing project files, running safe commands, running all commands, the browser and MCP; the model itself flags which commands count as safe. YOLO mode approves everything, and the docs call it dangerous outright.

Rules and extensions travel with the repository. A .clinerules file holds coding standards, architecture conventions and deployment steps, and the CLI, VS Code extension and JetBrains plugin load it automatically. Since v4.0.0 the extension has a Customize marketplace for Skills, MCP servers and plugins.

One runtime behind every surface. The Cline SDK (@cline/sdk) was announced as open source on 2026-05-13; it drives the extension, the CLI and the desktop app, and sessions carry over between them. The CLI supports multi-agent teams (cline --team-name), scheduled tasks (cline schedule create) and a headless mode with JSON output, and connects to Slack, Discord, Telegram, Linear and others.

The desktop app targets work outside the editor: parallel sessions, scheduled tasks, a plugin marketplace, and imports of Claude Code and Codex sessions to continue in Cline.

Cloud Agents run in the browser. After connecting GitHub and naming a repository and branch, a task runs in its own cloud sandbox, commits and pushes to a branch prefixed cline/, then opens a pull request. Up to 10 sessions can run at once and up to 50 can start per day; an idle sandbox pauses after 15 minutes and resumes with the workspace intact.

Who uses it

The website says more than 11 million developers use Cline, and the official blog of 2026-09-02 puts the VS Code extension at more than 11 million developers (as reported by the vendor). The official blog of 2026-01-30 reported passing 5 million installs across VS Code, JetBrains, Cursor, Windsurf and other editors served through OpenVSX (as reported by the vendor).

On the enterprise side, the official blog of 2025-10-20 says teams at Samsung, SAP and Oracle rolled the same open-source foundation out to tens of thousands of developers, and that Salesforce chose Cline's open architecture when building Agentforce (as reported by the vendor).

As for the community, as of 2026-10-26 the GitHub repository has 70,831 stars, 7,748 forks and about 341 named contributors, with the latest push at 2026-10-26 04:09 (UTC+8). The 2026-01-30 post adds that many team members started as open-source contributors.

How it compares

Aider is also open source and model-agnostic. It works mainly in the terminal and commits every change to git automatically, so familiar git tools handle review and undo. Cline rolls back through its own shadow-repository checkpoints, writes nothing into the project's history, and centers review on diffs inside the editor.

Anthropic's Claude Code also spans the terminal, IDE extensions, a desktop app and the web; most of those surfaces require a Claude subscription or an Anthropic Console account, while the terminal CLI, VS Code and JetBrains versions also support third-party providers. Cline has assumed customer-chosen providers from the start. ClinePass carries only open-weight models, and the desktop app can import a Claude Code or Codex session and continue it on an open-weight model.

Cline is not an editor itself but an extension for existing ones, and it also runs inside VS Code-based editors such as Cursor and Windsurf.

Who it's for / Not for

Suited to developers already working in VS Code or a JetBrains IDE who need an AI that edits code and runs commands, with a checkpoint on each step.

Suited to individuals who decide on their own models and providers and track spending per use, especially those relying on open-weight or local models.

Suited to enterprise teams that deploy in their own VPC, on premises or air-gapped, with their own inference through Bedrock, Vertex or Azure OpenAI.

Suited to teams embedding the same agent in their own tools or pipelines; the SDK and the CLI's JSON mode are built for that.

Not suited to anyone expecting a flat monthly fee to cover all usage: the individual tier bills only for model calls.

Not suited to teams that require every client to be open source: the JetBrains plugin is closed.

Not suited to Cloud Agents workflows that depend on local rules or MCP: cloud sessions do not yet load rules, skills, MCP servers or connectors.

Getting started

The VS Code extension comes from the VS Code Marketplace, and editors such as Cursor and Windsurf get it through OpenVSX; the JetBrains plugin is on JetBrains Marketplace; the CLI installs with npm i -g cline and the SDK with npm install @cline/sdk; the desktop app has macOS, Windows and Linux downloads on the website.

First use needs a model source: sign-in to a Cline account for the Cline provider (Google, GitHub or email login, with Cline credits; models tagged FREE cost nothing), a ClinePass subscription, or a key for another provider or a local model.

The README describes the typical flow as working out a plan in Plan mode, then switching to Act mode to carry it out; checkpoints let even auto-approved changes be rolled back as a whole.

Pricing & license

The individual tier is free: the VS Code extension, the CLI and the MCP marketplace carry no subscription or seat fees, and only model usage is billed, either as credits bought at cost through the Cline provider or through the user's own keys.

ClinePass is a $9.99-a-month subscription covering open-weight models from Z.ai, Moonshot AI, DeepSeek, MiniMax, MiMo, Qwen and others, with 2-5x the usage of standard API rates (as reported by the vendor); the page notes that the standard rate after the promotion is still $9.99 a month and that a processing fee may apply. ClinePass and the usage-billed Cline provider are separate providers and can be used side by side.

Enterprise is custom-priced and includes SSO, an SLA, centralized billing, role-based access control, provider limits, a team dashboard and authentication logs; the FAQ adds OIDC, SCIM, audit logs, VPC deployment and OpenTelemetry.

The code is Apache-2.0, copyright Cline Bot Inc., covering the extension, the CLI, the SDK and the desktop app; the JetBrains plugin is closed source and listed as free on JetBrains Marketplace.

Risks & limits

Cost depends on the model and the size of the task, and long tasks burn through tokens; the individual tier has no capped monthly plan, and ClinePass covers only its open-weight models.

With auto-approve or YOLO mode, commands run without confirmation. Whether a command counts as safe is the model's own call; the docs say the examples are not guarantees and that YOLO mode disables all safety checks. On very large repositories, checkpoints take noticeable storage and slow Cline down.

Telemetry is on out of the box in the VS Code and JetBrains extensions, the desktop app and the CLI, signed in or not. It records features used, errors, token counts, and model and provider names, but not code or prompts, except for requests through the Cline and ClinePass providers, whose telemetry can include the prompt and the model's reply. The extensions and desktop app turn it off in settings; the CLI needs a config-file change.

The privacy notice says content passed to a model provider falls under that provider's own privacy terms, and some providers may train on it unless an opt-out is used. The terms of service bar anyone under 18 and include mandatory individual arbitration (with an opt-out) and a class-action waiver.

The desktop line is still beta. As of 2026-10-26, extension v4.1.26 has put Claude Sonnet 5.5 back as the model the Cline provider uses with no model chosen, matching the desktop line's default since desktop-v0.0.48; both lines' 2026-10-26 releases (v4.1.26 and desktop-v0.0.49) refreshed the model catalog, each adding the Liquid Inference and Munito AI providers and dropping CrofAI, iFlow and Llama; the CommandCode and Reflection providers that the extension added in v4.1.26 were already added to the desktop line in desktop-v0.0.48. Cloud sessions are still rolling out gradually in the extension, and cloud sessions do not yet load rules, skills, MCP or connectors.

The vendor's own materials disagree in places. The README and the desktop docs list macOS and Windows for the desktop app, while the download page and the desktop-v0.0.49 assets include Linux; the pricing page lists the JetBrains extension as an Enterprise feature, while the README and JetBrains Marketplace show the plugin as free to all; and one docs page gives 100+ models for the Cline provider, while the desktop docs give 300+.

Our verdict

What sets Cline apart: each file edit and command can wait for human approval, and checkpoints can roll changes back; the inference source is the user's choice, with no tie to a single model vendor; it is open source under Apache-2.0 and runs on the client.

Its limits: the individual tier has no capped monthly plan; the JetBrains plugin is closed source; the desktop line is still beta, and Cloud sessions are rolling out gradually in the extension.

Why it stands out

Cline lives inside VS Code and has terminal access. It reads files, runs commands, opens a browser to check its own work, and stops for permission at every step that matters. The approval model is the product.

Founder Saoud Rizwan built the first demo for an Anthropic hackathon in July 2024. Anthropic released the Model Context Protocol on 2024-11-25; Cline added MCP support in v2.2.0 (published 2024-12-13). Plan and Act modes, checkpoints, and cost tracking arrived as the community grew past a million installs.

It asks for approval at each step that matters.

Sources

Official

  1. Cline READMEGitHub · Accessed Oct 25, 2026
  2. cline.botcline.bot · Accessed Oct 25, 2026
  3. Cline pricingcline.bot · Accessed Oct 25, 2026
  4. Cline for Desktop (Beta)cline.bot · Accessed Oct 25, 2026
  5. Cline desktop-v0.0.48 releaseGitHub · Accessed Oct 25, 2026
  6. Cline Enterprisecline.bot · Accessed Oct 25, 2026
  7. ClinePass - open weight modelscline.bot · Accessed Oct 25, 2026
  8. ClinePass - Cline docsdocs.cline.bot · Accessed Oct 25, 2026

Updates & reading