- Existing users get a one-time What's new dialog introducing Connectors, with connector logos, a clickable example prompt, and an Open Connectors button. You can replay it from Settings → About →…
Cline by Cline Bot Inc.
Pulse Score
52 / 100
Rank #34 of 157
Downloads, last 7 days
95K
up 10.1% vs previous week
Downloads, last 30 days
320K
down 37.2% vs previous 30 days
VS Code installs
5.5M
4.0 / 5 from 334 ratings
GitHub stars
69.9K
about +63 a day
Latest release
0.0.43
4d ago · 39 in 30 days
Price
Free + $9.99/mo
checked Oct 5, 2026
Overview
Open-source autonomous coding agent for VS Code (and JetBrains) that also ships a CLI, a desktop app and an SDK. It works with many model providers through the user's own keys, Cline's usage-billed provider or the ClinePass subscription.
Cline was downloaded 95K times from npm in the week ending Oct 4, 2026, up 10.1% on the week before and down 37.2% over the last 30 days compared with the 30 before. Its VS Code extension has 5.5M installs and average 4.0 out of 5 across 334 marketplace ratings. The GitHub repository has 69.9K stars, 2,603 of them added in the last 30 days. The latest stable release is 0.0.43, published Oct 2, 2026; there were 39 stable releases in the past 30 days. It was mentioned in 18 Hacker News posts and comments over the last 30 days.
Recent developments
- 2026-05-18: Homebrew deprecated the cline formula (non-FOSS @anthropic-ai/claude-agent-sdk dependency and prebuilt binaries)
Cline usage and attention over time
Download the raw daily series: cline.csv
Install Cline
| npm | npm install -g cline |
|---|---|
| Homebrew | brew install cline |
| VS Code | code --install-extension saoudrizwan.claude-dev |
These commands use the packages tracked on this page. The vendor may recommend a different installer; see the official documentation.
Key facts
| Maker | Cline Bot Inc. |
|---|---|
| Type | VS Code extension + terminal agent |
| First released | July 2024 |
| License | Apache-2.0 |
| Interfaces | IDE extension, CLI, Desktop, SDK |
| Platforms | macOS, Linux, Windows |
| Models | Many providers via BYOK (Anthropic, OpenAI, Gemini, OpenRouter, Bedrock, Vertex and more), the Cline provider, or ClinePass open-weight models |
| Local models | Ollama and LM Studio providers (docs) |
| Bring your own API key | Yes |
| Main language | TypeScript |
| Open issues and PRs | 1,603 |
| Open VSX downloads | 6,894,038 (includes updates) |
| Homebrew installs | 61 in 30 days · 1,734 in a year |
Pricing
The open-source extension and CLI are free for individuals; you pay only for model inference (BYOK or the usage-billed Cline provider). ClinePass is a subscription for open-weight models at a $9.99/month standard rate after a promotion period; Enterprise is custom.
Source: official pricing page, checked Oct 5, 2026. Prices change often; confirm before you buy.
Pulse Score breakdown
Adoption69
Community77
Attention20
Momentum13
Each component is scored 0 to 100 from public signals; a dash means no data for it. Methodology.
What changed: recent Cline releases
- New /compact slash command. It summarizes the conversation so far to free up context. The summary uses your session's provider settings and is not sent to the model as a prompt
- Connectors is now the first and default tab in Customize. A new Browse section lists the full connector catalog in two columns with search, so you no longer need the Marketplace to find a…
- Connectors now show their brand logo, both in Customize and in Marketplace rows
- If connectors aren't available to you, the Connectors tab now says why: a sign-in card when you're signed out, or a rollout notice with Check again when your account doesn't have beta access yet
- Cloud sessions can now use the same models as Cline on the web. The model picker lists Cline Usage-Billing, ClinePass, and ClineFree models (organization accounts don't get ClinePass), instead of…
- An unsent prompt is no longer lost when you switch to another session and back. New in the sidebar returns to your unfinished draft; Cmd/Ctrl+N still starts a fresh session
- Sessions you start in the app are now highlighted in the sidebar while open, instead of only sessions reopened from history. They also no longer get marked unread by their own messages
- Customize → Connectors now matches the Skills, Plugins, and MCP tabs, with search, a refresh button, and an Installed section. A new Suggested section offers ready-made connector combos (such as…
- Marketplace rows now show what type each item is, so same-named entries like the Figma MCP server and the Figma connector are easy to tell apart. Category filters moved into a single dropdown
- A connector's details now show how many tools it adds to new sessions, instead of the catalog's total tool count
- Agent teams stay fast in long sessions and while teammates are streaming. Every streamed chunk used to re-save the whole team state, so team runs got slower over time and ~/.cline/data/db/teams.db…
- Refreshed the model catalog. Default models change for DigitalOcean (GPT-6.1 Sol), GMI Cloud (Qwen 3.8 Flash), NanoGPT (Pareto 26.10 Preview), Nvidia (DeepSeek V4.1 Flash), and Ofox (GPT-6.1 Sol)
- Agent teams no longer slow down as a session runs or while a teammate is streaming. Every streamed chunk and 2-second heartbeat used to re-save the whole team state, including every finished…
- Standalone provider requests made outside a session (such as commit message generation) can now resolve Cline surface headers. sessionId is optional in resolveProviderRequestHeaders, and X-Task-ID…
- Refreshed the model catalog. Default models change for DigitalOcean (GPT-6.1 Sol), GMI Cloud (Qwen 3.8 Flash), NanoGPT (Pareto 26.10 Preview), Nvidia (DeepSeek V4.1 Flash), and Ofox (GPT-6.1 Sol)
- Custom providers added with Add Provider now work when you run a task. They showed up in the provider and model pickers but failed with Unknown or disabled provider
- New chats remember whether you last used Cloud or Local, and which Cloud model you picked, instead of always going back to Local. Switching a thread from Local to Cloud also opens on your…
- Saving provider credentials no longer fails when the provider's model list can't be fetched, and the model list refreshes when you change a provider's API key or endpoint
- MCP settings always use the same file. With CLINEMCPSETTINGSPATH, CLINEDATADIR, or CLINEDIR set, reading and saving servers, MCP OAuth sign-in, and Open MCP settings now all use that path, where…
- Tool diffs now follow the app's font size setting instead of a fixed 13px
- When an MCP tool returns more output than fits in context, the agent can now read the rest. It gets a preview plus a link it can page through, so the output past the cutoff is no longer lost
Cline alternatives
| # | Agent | Pulse | Downloads 7d | 7d | 30d | VS Code installs | Stars | Latest release | Price | Last 90 days | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 |
OpenAI CodexOpenAI |
82 | 25.6M | up 5.7% | up 21.2% | 15.2M | 128K+153/day | 0.160.1yesterday | Free + $8/mo | ||
| 3 |
Claude CodeAnthropic |
80 | 14.8M | up 11.6% | down 36.4% | 27.1M | 150K+161/day | 2.1.290yesterday | $20/mo | ||
| 5 |
PiEarendil Inc. (created by Mario Zechner) |
75 | 5.2M | up 29.8% | up 52.1% | — | 113K+378/day | 1.0.4yesterday | Free (OSS) | ||
| 7 |
OpenCodeAnomaly (SST team) |
73 | 3.3M | up 22.0% | up 6.1% | 1.2M | 212K+200/day | 1.18.346d ago | Free + $10/mo | ||
| 24 |
Gemini CLIGoogle |
57 | 453K | up 4.7% | up 1.8% | 1.1M | 107K+24/day | 0.62.07d ago | Varies | ||
| 26 |
Oh My PiStencil Labs (Can Bölük) |
56 | 241K | up 11.4% | up 53.9% | — | 34.4K+111/day | 18.6.12d ago | Free (OSS) | ||
| No agents match that filter. | |||||||||||
Head to head: Cline vs OpenCode · Cline vs Kilo Code
Guides that cover Cline
Cline FAQ
How much does Cline cost?
The open-source extension and CLI are free for individuals; you pay only for model inference (BYOK or the usage-billed Cline provider). ClinePass is a subscription for open-weight models at a $9.99/month standard rate after a promotion period; Enterprise is custom.
Is Cline open source?
Yes. Cline is open source, released under the Apache-2.0 license.
How popular is Cline?
Cline was downloaded 95K times from npm in the week ending Oct 4, 2026, up 10.1% on the week before and down 37.2% over the last 30 days compared with the 30 before. Its VS Code extension has 5.5M installs and average 4.0 out of 5 across 334 marketplace ratings. The GitHub repository has 69.9K stars, 2,603 of them added in the last 30 days.
What is the latest version of Cline?
The latest stable release we track is 0.0.43, published on Oct 2, 2026.
What are the alternatives to Cline?
The closest alternatives in the same category by Pulse Score are OpenAI Codex, Claude Code, Pi, OpenCode.
Where these numbers come from
npm: cline. GitHub: cline/cline. VS Code Marketplace: saoudrizwan.claude-dev. Homebrew: cline. Site rank: cline.bot on the Tranco list. See data sources for how each one is collected.
Product facts and pricing were checked against: cline.bot, docs.cline.bot, registry.npmjs.org, formulae.brew.sh, marketplace.visualstudio.com, open-vsx.org, github.com.