Cline (harness)
OSS VS Code extension that runs as a fully agentic coding assistant — plan/act modes, file ops, shell exec, browser-use, MCP. Originally "Claude Dev" (2024); rebranded Cline 2024-Q4. Multi-model: Anthropic, OpenAI, OpenRouter, Bedrock, Vertex. Memory layer = .clinerules and Memory Bank pattern (distinct rows in catalog).
Active · Verified 2026-10-26 · fresh as of 2026-10-26 · 49 cited facts, 1 with a third-party source · 1 recorded change · Suggest a correction
At a glance
- Tier
- T2
- Section
- Agent IDEs & coding harnesses
- Latest release
- v4.1.17 (2026-09-02) repo fix
- License
- Apache-2.0 vendor fix
- GitHub
- cline/cline — ~67.6k stars, last commit 2026-09 repo fix
- Pricing
- Free (OSS) + paid Pro vendor fix
- Funding
- Cline Inc. — Series A reported (2025; HQ undisclosed) vendor fix
- Freshness
- 2026-10-26 fix
- Layer
- agent-infra repo fix
- Developer activity
- OpenRank 76.07 (12-mo avg 90.04) · 446 participants — 2026-09 third-party fix
When to use
Optimised for: Plan/Act loop with explicit human approval gates
Anti-fit: VS Code-only; cost-per-run can spike on long sessions
Pros & cons
Pros
Strongest plan-then-act safety pattern in the OSS coding-agent set; Memory Bank pattern (.cline-memory-bank/) influenced wider "memory in markdown" practice.
Cons
VS Code only (no JetBrains, no terminal); per-token costs surprise users on long autonomous runs.
Claims & capabilities
One of the most-installed agentic VS Code extensions; multi-model via standard OpenAI-compatible APIs.
Technical surface
- API surface
- VS Code extension
- Backend storage
- local workspace + .clinerules
- Deployment
- Self-hosted only — local VS Code extension, JetBrains plugin and CLI; BYO model keys
- Embedding model
- not applicable — not a memory product
- Multi-tenancy
- per-user; Pro per-org
- MCP
- yes — MCP client in extension and CLI (cline mcp to manage servers)
- A2A
- searched not found
- OpenTelemetry
- searched not found
Alternatives to Cline (harness) → live options ranked by shared design, licence, hosting and MCP support
Similar systems
Other agent ides & coding harnesses in the catalog, ranked by inbound references.
- Claude Code (Anthropic) T1
Anthropic's agentic coding tool: Claude as a coding agent in the terminal, IDEs (VS Code, JetBrains), desktop app, web/mobile, GitHub and Slack. Context via CLAUDE.md, skills, hooks, subagents and MCP servers.
- Cursor (IDE) T1
AI-first IDE that forked VS Code; Composer (multi-file edit) and Agent Mode (long-running coding agent) are its flagship surfaces. Memory layer = .cursorrules / Rules; recall via repo-aware Context Engine. Anysphere (parent) raised $900M Series C at $9.9B in May 2025; acquired by SpaceX (announced 2026-08-14, terms undisclosed), product continues under the Cursor brand.
- OpenAI Codex CLI T1
OpenAI's actively developed OSS terminal coding agent (Apr 2025), now written in Rust (codex-rs replaced the original TS CLI); also IDE extension + desktop app. Separate from the Codex Web cloud agent and the retired 2021 Codex model API. The codex mcp-server command (Codex as an MCP server) was deprecated on 2026-08-24 and removed in CLI 0.154.0 (2026-09-09); OpenAI points integrations to the experimental Codex app server, and codex mcp still connects Codex to external MCP servers.
- Opencode (SST) T2
SST team's open-source terminal coding agent — TypeScript, multi-model, MCP-native. Released 2025; explicitly positioned as a permissively-licensed Claude Code alternative. Memory via AGENTS.md (the emerging cross-harness convention).
- Bedrock AgentCore (AWS) T2
AWS Bedrock AgentCore — managed runtime to deploy + scale + observe agents. Multi-component: Runtime, Identity, Memory, Gateway, Browser, Code Interpreter, Observability. Distinct from Bedrock Agents (older fixed-config product); AgentCore is the 2025 framework-agnostic runtime for any agent (LangGraph, CrewAI, Strands, OpenAI Agents SDK).
- GitHub Copilot (Agent Mode) T1
The original AI coding assistant (Copilot in editor; 2021). 2025 evolved into a full agentic surface: chat, completions, Agent Mode (multi-step), and Copilot Workspace. Backed by Microsoft. Distinct row from Workspace — this row covers the everyday in-editor + agent mode product, Workspace covers the hosted spec-driven workflow.
Sources (48 cited facts, 1 third-party)
Each fact links to the page it came from; the badge says who published it (how to read sources).
- What it is VS Code agentic coding extension (OSS, formerly Claude Dev) vendor
- What it does & what's distinct OSS VS Code extension that runs as a fully agentic coding assistant — plan/act modes, fi… vendor
- Claims / benefits One of the most-installed agentic VS Code extensions; multi-model via standard OpenAI-co… vendor
- Modalities text vendor
- Created 2024-07 vendor
- Latest release v4.1.17 (2026-09-02) repo
- License Apache-2.0 vendor
- GitHub cline/cline — ~67.6k stars, last commit 2026-09 repo
- Mindshare 15+ HN threads; reddit r/ClaudeAI organic uptake vendor
- Funding Cline Inc. — Series A reported (2025; HQ undisclosed) vendor
- Customers / scale OSS — broad community; commercial Cline Pro launched 2025 vendor
- Pricing Free (OSS) + paid Pro vendor
- Compliance SOC 2 Type II (Pro tier) vendor
- Data handling LLM calls go through user's chosen provider; Pro tier privacy controls vendor
- Deployment Self-hosted only — local VS Code extension, JetBrains plugin and CLI; BYO model keys repo
- HQ US vendor
- Founders / pedigree Saoud Rizwan (creator) vendor
- Memory volume / scale no scale claim vendor
- Code/weights release Open-source — github.com/cline/cline vendor
- API surface VS Code extension vendor
- Backend storage local workspace + .clinerules vendor
- Multi-tenancy per-user; Pro per-org vendor
- Encryption TLS for LLM APIs vendor
- SSO / RBAC Pro tier — SSO vendor
- Versioning .clinerules in git vendor
- Schema evolution free-form / no schema vendor
- Namespace primitives per-workspace vendor
- Contradiction handling human-arbitrate vendor
- MCP support yes — MCP client in extension and CLI (cline mcp to manage servers) repo
- Import / export rules + memory bank are markdown vendor
- Validated verticals coding agents — broad horizontal vendor
- Time to running <5min (install VS Code extension) vendor
- Anti-fit VS Code-only; cost-per-run can spike on long sessions vendor
- Optimised for Plan/Act loop with explicit human approval gates vendor
- Adjacent infrastructure OpenAI-compatible API; MCP vendor
- Pros Strongest plan-then-act safety pattern in the OSS coding-agent set; Memory Bank pattern … vendor
- Cons VS Code only (no JetBrains, no terminal); per-token costs surprise users on long autonom… vendor
- Project & sources cline.bot; github.com/cline/cline vendor
- cost-input-usd-per-mtok 0 vendor
- cost-output-usd-per-mtok 0 vendor
- cost-tier free vendor
- cost-pricing-model free-tier vendor
- cost-last-verified 2026-06-29 vendor
- architecture-deployment-locus ide vendor
- licensing-bucket open-core vendor
- positioning-platform-vs-product both vendor
- taxonomy-three-layer-rollup agent-infra repo
- developer-activity-opendigger {"activity":914.65,"as_of":"2026-09","openrank_12mo":90.04,"openrank_current":76.07,"par… third-party
What changed
Changes to this record's lifecycle, licence, release, pricing and hosting facts, from the catalog's git history. Subscribe (Atom)
- 2026-10-26
- Latest release “Cline 3.x (2025-2026 rolling)” → “v4.1.17 (2026-09-02)” source
- Deployment “VS Code extension (desktop) + Pro cloud” → “Self-hosted only — local VS Code extension, JetBrains plugin and CLI; BYO model keys” source
- MCP support “native — Cline is an MCP client” → “yes — MCP client in extension and CLI (cline mcp to manage servers)” source
Related systems
References (2)
- Model Context Protocol (MCP spec) depends on at runtime — adjacent-infrastructure cell: OpenAI-compatible API; MCP
- OpenAI GPT family (GPT-5 / GPT-4o / o3 / o4) depends on at runtime — adjacent-infrastructure cell: OpenAI-compatible API; MCP
Referenced by (5)
- IBM ContextForge MCP Gateway integrates with — IBM ContextForge docs have a Cline client page. (verified 2026-10-29)
- Portkey AI integrates with — Portkey docs have a Cline app/library integration page. (verified 2026-10-29)
- TrueFoundry AI Gateway integrates with — TrueFoundry AI Gateway ecosystem lists a Cline integration page. (verified 2026-10-29)
- Vercel AI Gateway integrates with — Vercel AI Gateway docs have a Cline coding-agent page. (verified 2026-10-29)
- Vercel AI SDK integrates with — AI SDK docs have a Cline AI SDK harness provider page. (verified 2026-10-29)