Clinevs
Windsurf
Windsurf: The agentic IDE
Cline
The Open Coding Agent
As of 29 August 2026, Cline is free to use. Open source AI coding agent for VS Code, the terminal, and SDK with plan and act workflows. Softwr lists it under Software Development.
Overview
What Cline does
Open source AI coding agent for VS Code, the terminal, and SDK with plan and act workflows.
What people use it for
- AI-assisted code generation and refactoring
- VS Code extension for developers
- Enterprise multi-user team collaboration
The honest half
Where it falls short
Concrete and checkable, so you can decide whether any of them matter to you. This is the half of a review a vendor will not write about Cline.
- no seat licenses or subscription fees for open source tier creates unclear Enterprise pricing model
- JetBrains IDE support only in Enterprise tier
Cross-shopped
What people choose instead of Cline
Each pairing was judged by two reviewers asking whether a buyer would genuinely weigh the two against each other. The ones that failed were deleted rather than published.
- ClinevsZed
Zed: Code at the speed of thought
- ClinevsCursor
Cursor: The AI-first code editor
- ClinevsAAmp
Amp: Amp is the frontier agent
Answered, with sources
Questions people ask
Each answer names the page it came from, so you can check it rather than take our word for it.
Is Cline free?
Yes, Cline open source is free and Apache 2.0 licensed; you pay only for AI model inference when you use it, with no subscriptions or seat licenses.
SourceDoes Cline have team collaboration features?
Team collaboration is available in the Enterprise tier only, which includes SSO/OIDC, role-based access control, team management dashboard, and audit logs.
SourceCan I use my own AI API keys with Cline?
Yes, you can bring your own API keys from OpenAI, Anthropic, Google, and other providers, giving you full control over inference costs.
SourceWhat's included in Cline Enterprise?
Cline Enterprise adds JetBrains IDE support, SSO/OIDC authentication, SLA, dedicated support, centralized billing, role-based access control, and audit logging to the open source features.
SourceKeep looking
Where to go from Cline
- Cline alternativesEvery product people weigh against it
- Cline pricingPlans, floors and what the tiers exclude
- Cline badgesWhich rules it meets, and the figure behind each
- All Software Development softwareThe full category
- Best Software Development softwareThe shortlist, and how it was cut
Best Software Development software for
Compare Cline with
- Amp
- Cursor
- Windsurf
- Zed
- Qodo
- Flagsmith
- Unleash
- Braintrust
- Codacy
- DeepSource
- Devin
- SonarQube Cloud
- Drizzle ORM
- Skaffold
- Bun
- Factory
- Humanloop
- Langfuse
Other Software Development software
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10 researched notesCloud-based static code analysis for detecting bugs, vulnerabilities, and code smells.
Free, then $34/mo10 researched notesCommand-line inner loop for Kubernetes: watch, build, push and deploy on every file save
Open source12 researched notesJavaScript runtime, bundler, test runner and package manager unified in single toolchain
Free plan12 researched notes
Softwr does not host reviews and shows no star rating for Cline, because a rating we did not collect is not ours to publish. What is here is the pricing and platform detail from the vendor’s own pages, limitations we could state concretely, and alternatives a reviewer confirmed people weigh against it. Tell us if any of it is wrong.
More on Cline
Cline alternatives
What people switch to, and what they give up
Cline pricing
Every tier, and where the cost actually lands
Compare Cline
Put it head to head with anything we hold
Cline badge
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Best Software Development software alternatives
Command-line inner loop for Kubernetes: watch, build, push and deploy on every file save
Open source, no licence fee
Cloud-based static code analysis for detecting bugs, vulnerabilities, and code smells.
freemium