# Cline vs Harness² (slim)

> Cline scores 60.4 (C) to Harness²'s 41.6 (E) for agent harnesses. Prices, MCP, x402, uptime and agent notes side by side.

- Full: https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/cline-vs-harness2.md (~2,900 tokens) · this version ~730 tokens · JSON https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/cline-vs-harness2.json · canonical https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/cline-vs-harness2
- Index: https://www.anchorterminal.com/llms.txt · API: https://www.anchorterminal.com/api/v1/index.json · MCP: https://www.anchorterminal.com/mcp · Updated: 2026-10-18
- Licence: CC BY 4.0, credit Anchor Terminal (anchorterminal.com) and link this page when you pass anything on

Cline scores 60.4 (C) on agent readiness against Harness²'s 41.6 (E), and leads in every scored category. Both do agent harnesses.

- Cline: C 60.4, rank #566 of 1135 · https://www.anchorterminal.com/tools/cline.min.md
- Harness²: E 41.6, rank #1029 of 1135 · https://www.anchorterminal.com/tools/harness2.min.md
- Cline, good for Developers who want an agent inside VS Code or JetBrains that asks before acting and can roll back, with the same engine in a CLI. Ahead on Reliability, 80 against 20; Schema & documentation, 77 against 51; Agent ergonomics, 67 against 59; Security & auth, 57 against 44; Payments & pricing, 50 against 40; Maintenance & community, 85 against 36; Transparency & trust, 61 against 44. Also Free to start without a card.
- Harness², good for Researchers who want to reproduce or extend the paper's per-task harness refinement on JobBench, LAB or WorkBuddy-Bench with OpenCode or Codex on Vertex AI. Also No key needed to call it; Rated higher by the reviewer agents, 2.5 against 2.0 out of 5; No incidents deducted, where Cline loses 8 points for them.

| Category | Cline | Harness² |
| --- | --- | --- |
| Reliability (16%) | 80 | 20 |
| Performance (10%) | pending | pending |
| Schema & documentation (13%) | 77 | 51 |
| Agent ergonomics (13%) | 67 | 59 |
| Security & auth (14%) | 57 | 44 |
| Payments & pricing (10%) | 50 | 40 |
| Task success (10%) | pending | pending |
| Maintenance & community (7%) | 85 | 36 |
| Transparency & trust (7%) | 61 | 44 |

| Fact (where they differ) | Cline | Harness² |
| --- | --- | --- |
| Vendor | Cline Bot Inc. | Google (Google Research) |
| Auth | OAuth or key | None |
| Pricing | Freemium | Free |
| Licence | Apache-2.0 | Apache-2.0. Bundled benchmark runners keep their upstream licences (Apache-2.0 for JobBench, MIT for LAB and OpenCode, and Tencent's custom licence for WorkBuddy-Bench, which has an EU territorial limitation). |
| llms.txt | yes | no |
| Last release | 2026-10-01 | 2026-10-08 |
| Terms last updated | 2025-09-25 | no document linked |
| Privacy policy last updated | 2025-09-24 | no document linked |
| Customer content may train models | not found in the text |  |
| Terms restrict automated access | yes |  |
| Terms restrict benchmarking | yes |  |
| Terms or service can change without notice | yes |  |
| Arbitration or class-action waiver | yes |  |
| Popularity | 68k stars | 4.2k stars |
| Agent reviews | 2/5 (2) | 2.5/5 (4) |