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Claude Code vs Cline

Honest breakdown of Claude Code (anthropic's official agentic cli for delegating coding tasks from the terminal.) and Cline (open-source autonomous coding agent for vs code. plan-then-act with full transparency.). Last refreshed 2026-04-30.

Aspect Claude Code Cline
Category cli extension
Pricing $20/mo Free
Open source No Yes
License Proprietary Apache-2.0
Models
  • · claude-opus-4-6
  • · claude-sonnet-4-6
  • · claude-haiku-4-5
  • · claude-sonnet-4-6
  • · gpt-5
  • · deepseek-v3.5
  • · qwen-3-coder
  • · llama-3.3
  • · any-via-openrouter
Integrations
  • · MCP
  • · GitHub
  • · Linear
  • · Slack
  • · Vercel
  • · Figma
  • · MCP
  • · OpenRouter
  • · Ollama
  • · LM Studio
Best for
  • · Senior engineers refactoring large codebases
  • · Agentic workflows
  • · Plugin authors
  • · Privacy-conscious teams
  • · Local-LLM enthusiasts
  • · Devs who want full control

When to pick Claude Code

  • · Senior engineers refactoring large codebases
  • · Agentic workflows
  • · Plugin authors

When to pick Cline

  • · Privacy-conscious teams
  • · Local-LLM enthusiasts
  • · Devs who want full control
Full Claude Code review → Full Cline review →