# Cline

> Open-source AI coding agent for editors and terminals

- Page on StartupList: https://startuplist.tech/launches/cline
- Website: https://cline.bot/
- Category: AI Coding
- Price: Free + paid plans
- Company: Cline Bot Inc (https://startuplist.tech/companies/cline-bot-inc)
- Used for: Ship code faster, Automate workflows, Build an app

## At a glance

- The problem it solves: Developers need an AI coding assistant that can make multi-file changes and run commands without locking them into one model or platform
- Who it's for: Businesses and consumers
- How it finds customers: Reddit and communities, X (Twitter), Blog and content, Marketplaces and integrations

## About

Cline is an open-source AI coding agent that works in your editor, your terminal, or inside your own product through an SDK. It can edit files across a project, run bash commands, and read the output as it appears, so it can handle dev servers, tests and deploys as part of the same task.

It has two working modes. In Plan mode, Cline proposes a strategy for a task, and you agree on it before anything changes. In Act mode, it carries out the plan. You can approve each step yourself or turn on auto-approve. Every multi-file change comes with diffs, checkpoints and one-click undo.

Cline works with many models. You can connect providers such as Anthropic, OpenAI, Google and AWS Bedrock, run local models through Ollama or LM Studio, or use any OpenAI-compatible endpoint. You bring your own key or your own weights, so the model you choose stays under your control.

Custom behaviour is set through .clinerules files kept in your repository, which describe your coding standards, architecture and deployment conventions. Cline also supports Model Context Protocol servers, so it can reach databases, APIs and infrastructure, and the SDK lets developers register their own tools and lifecycle hooks.

The agent can be run headlessly in GitHub Actions, GitLab or another CI pipeline, and it can be reached from Slack, Discord, Telegram or Linear. Coordinator agents can hand work to specialist agents with their own tools, and they can run on a schedule for recurring jobs.

Cline is aimed at individual developers and at teams building software. Individual developers can install the open-source extension for free. The page says you pay only for AI inference, billed on usage, and you can bring your own API keys. There are no subscriptions or seat fees for the open-source version.

For organisations, the page describes an Enterprise plan with team management, centralised billing, SSO, role-based access control, audit logs, VPC deployment, an SLA and dedicated support. Pricing for Enterprise is by contact with sales.

Cline is available as a VS Code, Windsurf, JetBrains and Cursor extension, as a command-line tool installed with npm, as a desktop app for Mac, Windows and Linux, and as an SDK.

## Links

- [Cline on StartupList](https://startuplist.tech/launches/cline)
- [Website](https://cline.bot/)