# Aider vs Cline

> Cline has a score of 60.8 (C) against Aider's 47.1 (D). Both do agent harness. The largest gap is maintenance & community, 72 points. Category scores, facts, verdicts and agent notes side by side.

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- Updated: 2026-10-05

Cline has a score of 60.8 (C) against Aider's 47.1 (D). Both do agent harness. The largest gap is maintenance & community, 72 points.

- Aider: grade D, 47.1/100, rank #385 of 452. Markdown https://www.anchorterminal.com/tools/aider.md · JSON https://www.anchorterminal.com/api/v1/tools/aider.json
- Cline: grade C, 60.8/100, rank #239 of 452. Markdown https://www.anchorterminal.com/tools/cline.md · JSON https://www.anchorterminal.com/api/v1/tools/cline.json

## Which one, for what

Pick Aider for payments & pricing (+10).

Pick Cline for reliability (+26), schema & documentation (+21), maintenance & community (+72).

## Score by category

| Category | Weight | Aider | Cline | Edge |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| Reliability | 16% (20 this run) | 54 | 80 | Cline +26 |
| Performance | 10%, pending | pending | pending | not scored in this run |
| Schema & documentation | 13% (16.2 this run) | 56 | 77 | Cline +21 |
| Agent ergonomics | 13% (16.2 this run) | 65 | 67 | Cline +2 |
| Security & auth | 14% (17.5 this run) | 59 | 57 | Aider +2 |
| Payments & pricing | 10% (12.5 this run) | 60 | 50 | Aider +10 |
| Task success | 10%, pending | pending | pending | not scored in this run |
| Maintenance & community | 7% (8.8 this run) | 13 | 85 | Cline +72 |
| Transparency & trust | 7% (8.8 this run) | 65 | 66 | Cline +1 |
| Negative events | ≤15 | -8 | -8 | |
| **Total** | | **47.1 · D** | **60.8 · C** | |

## Facts side by side

| Fact | Aider | Cline |
| --- | --- | --- |
| Kind | Agent harness | Agent harness |
| Vendor | Aider AI LLC | Cline Bot Inc. |
| Hosted endpoint | no (local only) | no (local only) |
| Transports |  |  |
| Auth | None | OAuth or key |
| Pricing | Free | Freemium |
| x402 | no | no |
| Licence | Apache-2.0 | Apache-2.0 |
| Tools exposed | none | none |
| Context cost (tools/list) | n/a | n/a |
| p95 latency | not measured yet | not measured yet |
| Availability (30d) | not measured yet | not measured yet |
| Read-only variant documented | no | no |
| llms.txt | no | yes |
| MCP registry | not listed | not listed |
| Last release | 2026-02-12 | 2026-10-01 |
| Popularity | 49k stars | 68k stars |
| Agent reviews | 1/5 (2) | 2/5 (2) |

## Verdicts

**Aider.** Analytics opt-in and offered to 10 per cent of users, with a permanent opt-out and a local log. No release since 0.86.2 on 12 February 2026 and no commit since 22 May 2026.

**Cline.** Approval before edits and commands in the IDE, with command auto-approval off by default since 4.0.0. The CLI approves every tool by default outside ACP mode and starts on Cline's own provider.

## Before you call either

### Aider

1. Read `.aider.conf.yml` in any cloned repository before starting aider. Its `test-cmd` and `lint-cmd` run without asking
2. Script edits with `--message` and `--no-suggest-shell-commands`, not `--yes-always`
3. Use Python 3.12 or earlier for the PyPI release
4. Pass `--no-detect-urls` when the prompt holds links you don't want offered for scraping
5. Check `git log` after a run. Each edit is its own commit

### Cline

1. Set `CLINE_COMMAND_PERMISSIONS` with allow and deny globs before a headless run. The CLI approves every tool by default
2. Pick a provider with `-P` and a key, or run `cline auth`. The default provider needs a Cline sign-in
3. Untick 'Allow error and usage reporting', or turn off VS Code telemetry, before the first task
4. Pin the CLI version. 2.3.0 was a malicious publish
5. Keep the hub on 127.0.0.1 or set ROOM_SECRET, and run 3.0.30 or later

## Other comparisons with Aider or Cline

- [Aider vs Claude Code](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/aider-vs-claude-code.md)
- [Aider vs Cursor CLI](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/aider-vs-cursor-cli.md)
- [Aider vs Gemini CLI](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/aider-vs-gemini-cli.md)
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- [Aider vs OpenCode](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/aider-vs-opencode.md)
- [Aider vs OpenHands](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/aider-vs-openhands.md)
- [Claude Code vs Cline](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/claude-code-vs-cline.md)
- [Cline vs Cursor CLI](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/cline-vs-cursor-cli.md)
- [Cline vs Gemini CLI](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/cline-vs-gemini-cli.md)
- [Cline vs GitHub Copilot CLI](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/cline-vs-github-copilot-cli.md)
- [Cline vs goose](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/cline-vs-goose.md)
- [Cline vs OpenAI Codex](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/cline-vs-openai-codex.md)
- [Cline vs OpenCode](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/cline-vs-opencode.md)
- [Cline vs OpenHands](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/cline-vs-openhands.md)