Cline
Cline is an open-source AI coding agent that runs inside VS Code, JetBrains, your terminal or your own product. It plans before it acts, edits across many files, runs commands and works with any model provider you choose.
What is Cline?
Cline is an open-source agent runtime for software development, published under the Apache 2.0 licence with more than 250 contributors and roughly 66,000 GitHub stars. The same runtime is exposed through three surfaces: an editor extension, a terminal CLI installed with a single npm command on macOS, Windows and Linux, and a TypeScript SDK split into five packages that requires Node.js 22 or later. On the editor side it ships for VS Code, where the site reports over 4.5 million installs, for JetBrains IDEs in early access, and for Cursor and Windsurf through the same marketplace listing. Across all platforms Cline claims more than 8 million installs and a 4.1 out of 5 rating from 307 VS Code Marketplace reviews.
Its signature is the split between Plan and Act. In Plan mode you settle the approach with the agent; in Act mode it carries the plan out, asking approval before each file write or shell command unless auto-approve is switched on. Every tool call becomes a checkpoint, so any change can be rolled back. Conventions are taught to the agent through a .clinerules file committed with the repository, through global custom instructions, and through Skills and Hooks that bundle reusable expertise or gate a tool call with a script.
The second principle is model neutrality. Cline connects to Anthropic, OpenAI, Google Gemini, OpenRouter, AWS Bedrock, GCP Vertex, Azure OpenAI, Groq, Cerebras, Vercel AI Gateway, DeepSeek, or to Ollama and LM Studio running on your own hardware, and to any OpenAI-compatible endpoint. You bring your own key, your own endpoint or your own weights. ClinePass, a separate subscription, bundles access to open-weight models such as GLM, Kimi, DeepSeek, MiniMax, MiMo and Qwen.
Beyond the editor, a Kanban board launched from the CLI runs several agents at once, each in its own git worktree, with dependency chains, inline diff review and comments that go straight back to the agent. Cron schedules, Slack, Discord, Telegram, Google Chat, WhatsApp and Linear connectors, agent teams with a shared mailbox and headless CI runs complete the picture. Enterprise plans add SSO, OIDC, SCIM, role-based access control, audit logs, centralised billing and VPC, on-premise or air-gapped deployment.
What it does
- Make coordinated edits across many files, with diffs, checkpoints and one-click undo on every step
- Run shell commands and react to their output live, including long-running dev servers, tests and deploys
- Agree on a strategy in Plan mode, then execute it step by step in Act mode with per-action approval
- Read and explain an unfamiliar codebase, its files, dependencies and behaviour, through @ mentions
- Orchestrate several agents in parallel on a Kanban board, each isolated in its own git worktree
- Run headless inside GitHub Actions, GitLab or any pipeline, with machine-readable output and exit codes
- Extend itself with MCP servers, custom tools, lifecycle hooks and npm-shareable plugins
When to use Cline / When not to
A quick filter to help you decide if Cline is the right fit.
When to use Cline
- Software engineers who want an agent that edits across a whole repository instead of autocompleting a single line
- Platform and DevOps teams running the CLI headlessly inside GitHub Actions, GitLab pipelines or cron jobs
- Enterprise engineering groups under strict security rules that require VPC, on-premise or air-gapped deployment
- Developers who want to choose their own model and pay for inference at cost with their own API keys
- Product teams embedding an agent runtime in their own tooling through the @cline/sdk packages
When not to use Cline
- Anyone without an editor or a terminal, as there is no standalone web workspace and no mobile app
- People under 18, who are excluded by both the terms of use and the privacy notice
- Buyers who need a published security certification, a data processing agreement or a subprocessor list, none of which the site provides
- Teams that want a single predictable flat fee, since model inference is billed separately and is not capped
- Non-technical users looking for a no-code builder, because every workflow runs through code, a shell or a repository
How to use Cline
A typical end-to-end flow, from setup to results.
- Install the extension: open VS Code, click the Extensions icon, search for Cline and install it
- Or install the terminal version with npm i -g cline, which works on macOS, Windows and Linux
- Open the agent from the Cline icon, or press CMD/CTRL + Shift + P and choose Cline: Open In New Tab
- Sign in from the extension and create an account on app.cline.bot if you want managed model access
- Paste an API key from your own provider, or select the Cline provider or a ClinePass subscription
- Pick the model you want to work with, then describe your task in plain language
- Point the agent at the right files with a relative path or an @ mention
- Stay in Plan mode until the approach is right, then switch to Act mode to execute it
- Approve each file write and command as it comes, or enable auto-approve once you trust the run
- Go further with a .clinerules file, MCP servers, the cline --kanban board or headless runs in CI
Pros & Cons
Pros
- Fully open source under Apache 2.0, so security and compliance teams can audit what the agent does
- No vendor lock-in: any provider, any key, any endpoint, including models running on your own hardware
- Inference is paid at cost and stays visible, with no hidden margin or opaque multi-model routing
- With your own keys, the terms state that Cline neither receives nor stores your code or tokens
- One runtime across editor, terminal and SDK, so the same conventions and tools follow you everywhere
- Genuine human control: approval on every write and command, checkpoints and reversible steps
- Free for an individual developer, with no seat fee and no mandatory subscription
Cons
- Inference costs fall on the user and are not capped, so a long session on a large model can be expensive
- No security certification is published on the site, and there is no DPA or subprocessor list
- The privacy notice never mentions the GDPR, and no EU representative or data protection officer is named
- No postal address, no legal notice page and no about page anywhere on the site
- Technical prerequisites: an editor or a terminal, Node.js 22 or later for the SDK, and API key handling
- The JetBrains extension is still early access and is listed under the Enterprise plan
- Telemetry is on by default and has to be switched off manually in the extension settings
Pricing & Plans
A permanent free plan is available: the open-source edition is free for individual developers, with no subscription and no seat fee, and only model inference is billed, either at cost through the Cline provider or directly to your own API keys. The cheapest fixed paid option is the ClinePass subscription at USD 9.99 per month, currently offered at USD 4.99 for the first month, with possible additional processing fees. Enterprise pricing is not published and is quoted on request, as is the licence required for Cline Spec Driven.
- VS Code extension
- CLI
- secure client-side architecture
- model inference at cost or bring your own key
- MCP Marketplace
- multi-root workspaces
- community support
- access to open-weight models (GLM 5.2
- Kimi K3
- Kimi K2.7 Code
- Kimi K2.6
- DeepSeek V4 Pro
- DeepSeek V4 Flash
- MiniMax M3
- MiMo V2.5 Pro
- everything in Open Source plus the JetBrains extension
- SSO
- SLA
- dedicated support
- centralised billing
- configuration management
- role-based access control
- inference provider restrictions
- multi-agent enterprise platform built with LG CNS
- contact sales
Data, GDPR & hosting
A consolidated view of how Cline handles your data.
GDPR overview
The site contains no reference to the GDPR whatsoever. Searching the eighteen pages collected, including the privacy notice of 24 September 2025 and the full terms of use, returns no occurrence of GDPR, General Data Protection Regulation, EEA or any European supervisory framework, and no Article 27 representative or data protection officer is named. What stands in its place is a US-oriented notice: the terms cite California Civil Code section 1789.3, the governing law is Delaware, and a cookie consent manager stores choices for twelve months across necessary, analytics, marketing and preference categories. Privacy requests go to a single address, support@cline.bot, with no documented access, portability or erasure procedure. European buyers should therefore treat compliance as undocumented rather than as claimed or denied.
Who owns the data?
Section 3.1 of the terms states that you, or your organisation, keep every right, title and interest in your User Content: code, prompts, responses, files and terminal output. Section 3.4 adds that Cline claims no ownership over it. In exchange, section 3.2 grants Cline a non-exclusive, worldwide, royalty-free and sublicensable licence to host, cache, copy, process and transmit that content in order to run the service, to improve it, and to comply with the law. The improvement clause is perpetual and irrevocable for de-identified or aggregated data, and it does not apply while a per-seat subscription is active. Telemetry data, by contrast, belongs exclusively to Cline under section 3.6.
Reuse rights
Nothing in the terms transfers ownership of your content to Cline, so you may reuse the code and the output the agent produces without asking permission, within the limits your model provider sets. Two caveats appear in section 3.4: identical output may be generated for other users, and you carry the responsibility of checking accuracy, with human review explicitly recommended. Section 3.3 makes you warrant that you hold the rights to whatever you feed the agent, that you upload no personal data belonging to children under 13, and that the content is lawful. Section 3.5 warns that when you use keys supplied by Cline, model providers may train on your content unless you opt out with them directly. Cline's own product code ships under the Apache 2.0 licence.
Data retention & training
Hosting summary
No hosting jurisdiction, country or region is declared anywhere on the site. What the enterprise page describes instead is an architecture where processing happens locally in your development environment, with the claim that proprietary code, internal tooling and prompts never leave your infrastructure. The terms back this for the bring-your-own-key case: Cline then neither receives nor stores your code or tokens. When you use keys supplied by Cline, content is transmitted to third-party model providers and falls under their policies. Enterprise customers can deploy in a VPC, on premises or air-gapped, and run inference on Amazon Bedrock, GCP Vertex, Azure OpenAI, an internal provider or local hardware. Payments are handled by Stripe and analytics by Google Analytics. The domain resolves to a United States anycast node operated by Amazon, which indicates a delivery point rather than a storage location.
Things to keep in mind
Risks and trade-offs to weigh before adopting Cline.
- Auto-approve lets the agent write files and run shell commands unattended, including destructive ones
- Inference is uncapped: a long session on a large model can run up a bill with no warning
- The terms explicitly warn that output may be inaccurate and require you to review it yourself
- Identical output may be generated for other users, which matters for originality and for rights
- With Cline-supplied keys your code reaches third-party model providers, who may train on it unless you opt out with them
- Installing an unknown MCP server hands it access to your tools, databases and APIs
- Delegating code reading and refactoring can quietly erode your own understanding of the codebase
Setup & Integrations
Technical difficulty
Low for anyone already writing code. The extension installs from the VS Code Marketplace in three clicks, the terminal version needs a single global npm command, and the only real step after that is pasting an API key or subscribing for managed access. The SDK asks a little more: Node.js 22 or later and a few lines of TypeScript. Deeper configuration is optional and incremental, from a .clinerules file to MCP servers, policy hooks and parallel git worktrees. The genuine barrier is conceptual rather than technical: you need an editor or a terminal and some familiarity with model providers.
Deployment
Integrations
Supported languages
Behind Cline
Fundraising
Social
Resources
All the official URLs gathered for verification and reference.
Alternatives
Tools that compete with or complement Cline.
Frequently asked questions
Is Cline free to use?
Can I use my own API keys?
Does my code leave my machine?
Which editors and environments does it support?
How do Plan and Act modes work?
What are MCP servers and how do I add one?
Which programming languages does it handle?
When does a team need the Enterprise plan?
Is there a minimum age?
Is telemetry collected?
Should you pick Cline?
Cline takes a clear position in a crowded market: the agent itself is free and open source, and the money you spend goes to the model you chose, at the price that model actually costs. That single decision explains most of the product. It is why the tool connects to every major provider and to local weights, why the terms can promise that your code never reaches Cline when you bring your own keys, and why security teams in regulated organisations have been able to adopt it at all. The engineering follows: one runtime behind an editor extension, a terminal CLI and an SDK, a Plan and Act split that keeps a human in the loop, checkpoints on every step, and a real extension surface through MCP servers, plugins and policy hooks. The traction is not hypothetical either, with more than 8 million installs, roughly 66,000 GitHub stars, USD 32 million raised and adoption reported at Samsung, SAP and Salesforce.
The reservations sit elsewhere, and they are worth weighing. Legal transparency is thin for a company at this scale: no postal address, no legal notice, no about page, not a single mention of the GDPR, no data processing agreement and no published security certification. Buyers in Europe or in procurement-heavy organisations will have to ask for all of that directly. Cost is the other open question, since inference is uncapped by design and budget discipline is left to the team. And the audience is unambiguously technical: you need an editor or a terminal, comfort with API keys, and the judgement to review what an agent writes. For developers who accept those terms, Cline is one of the most controllable coding agents available; for anyone who needs a turnkey, contractually documented vendor, the gaps are real.
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