Claude Code vs Cline
Read from each vendor’s own pages last night, so it does not go stale the way a written comparison does.
CLI agent
Claude Code
Anthropic's terminal coding agent. The highest-adoption CLI agent by developer survey share.
Free, then $20 / mo
IDE extension
Cline
The bring-your-own-key VS Code agent extension. Users pay providers directly, not Cline.
Free
Measured — counted from real repositories, nightlyAsserted — read from the vendor docs, dated
| Compared on | Claude Code | Cline |
|---|---|---|
| Asserted — what each vendor publishes about itself | ||
| Category | CLI agent | IDE extension |
| Vendor | Anthropic | Cline |
| Status | Active | Active |
| How it charges | Subscription | Free |
| Entry price | Free, then $20 / mo | Free |
| Plans |
|
|
| Default model | anthropic/claude-opus-4.8 | None — you choose |
| Your own key | Yes | Yes |
| Source | Proprietary | Open source · Apache-2.0 |
| Measured — counted on the last nightly run | ||
| Stars | 140.1K | 65.5K |
| Maintenance | 92/100 | 100/100 |
| Days since last push | 9 | 0 |
| Top model in it | Anthropic: Claude Opus 4.8 · $10.00 | StepFun: Step 3.7 Flash · $0.44 |
| Its volume | 747B tokens | 759B tokens |
What has changed on either of them
1 entry| What changed | Kind | Was, and is now | Confidence | Occurred |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Claude Code changed the quota wording on its pricing pageClaude Code | Quota change | limits 24 hourslimits 20x more usage, 20x the usage, 24 hours, 5x more usage, unlimited projects to organize chats | low |
