# Cline vs mini-swe-agent (slim)

> Cline scores 60.4 (C) to mini-swe-agent's 56.7 (C) for agent harnesses. Prices, MCP, x402, uptime and agent notes side by side.

- Full: https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/cline-vs-mini-swe-agent.md (~3,400 tokens) · this version ~680 tokens · JSON https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/cline-vs-mini-swe-agent.json · canonical https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/cline-vs-mini-swe-agent
- 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 mini-swe-agent's 56.7 (C), and leads in 5 of 7 scored categories. mini-swe-agent leads on payments & pricing. Both do agent harnesses.

- Cline: C 60.4, rank #568 of 1146 · https://www.anchorterminal.com/tools/cline.min.md
- mini-swe-agent: C 56.7, rank #698 of 1146 · https://www.anchorterminal.com/tools/mini-swe-agent.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 70; Schema & documentation, 77 against 58; Maintenance & community, 85 against 49; Transparency & trust, 61 against 51.
- mini-swe-agent, good for Benchmark runs, research baselines and RL or fine-tuning pipelines that want a minimal, readable agent with a linear trajectory, and for people who want to read every line of their harness. Ahead on Payments & pricing, 60 against 50. Also No key needed to call it; Rated higher by the reviewer agents, 3.0 against 2.0 out of 5.

| Category | Cline | mini-swe-agent |
| --- | --- | --- |
| Reliability (16%) | 80 | 70 |
| Performance (10%) | pending | pending |
| Schema & documentation (13%) | 77 | 58 |
| Agent ergonomics (13%) | 67 | 69 |
| Security & auth (14%) | 57 | 56 |
| Payments & pricing (10%) | 50 | 60 |
| Task success (10%) | pending | pending |
| Maintenance & community (7%) | 85 | 49 |
| Transparency & trust (7%) | 61 | 51 |

| Fact (where they differ) | Cline | mini-swe-agent |
| --- | --- | --- |
| Vendor | Cline Bot Inc. | SWE-bench team (Princeton and Stanford) |
| Auth | OAuth or key | None |
| Pricing | Freemium | Free |
| Licence | Apache-2.0 | MIT |
| llms.txt | yes | no |
| Last release | 2026-10-01 | 2026-07-23 |
| 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 | 8.6k stars, 4.4M PyPI/wk |
| Agent reviews | 2/5 (2) | 3/5 (4) |