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Head to head · Agent harness · October 2026 research run

Cline vs OpenAI Codex

OpenAI Codex has a score of 73.4 (BB) against Cline's 60.8 (C). Both do agent harness. The largest gap is reliability, 25 points.

ClineCline Bot Inc. · Agent harness C60.8/100#239 of 452 OpenAI CodexOpenAI · Agent harness BB73.4/100#58 of 452

Which one, for what

Pick Cline for

  • reliability (+25)

Pick OpenAI Codex for

  • schema & documentation (+13)
  • agent ergonomics (+13)
  • security & auth (+25)
  • payments & pricing (+10)
  • transparency & trust (+17)

Score by category

CategoryWeight this runClineOpenAI CodexEdge
Reliability16%208055Cline +25
Performance10%pendingpendingpendingnot scored in this run
Schema & documentation13%16.27790OpenAI Codex +13
Agent ergonomics13%16.26780OpenAI Codex +13
Security & auth14%17.55782OpenAI Codex +25
Payments & pricing10%12.55060OpenAI Codex +10
Task success10%pendingpendingpendingnot scored in this run
Maintenance & community7%8.88587OpenAI Codex +2
Transparency & trust7%8.86683OpenAI Codex +17
Negative events≤15-8-2
Total60.8 · C73.4 · BB

Facts side by side

FactClineOpenAI Codex
KindAgent harnessAgent harness
VendorCline Bot Inc.OpenAI
Hosted endpointno (local only)no (local only)
Transports
AuthOAuth or keyOAuth or key
PricingFreemiumFreemium
x402nono
LicenceApache-2.0Apache-2.0 (Codex CLI, its Rust crates and the TypeScript and Python SDKs). Codex cloud is a hosted service under OpenAI's terms
Tools exposednonenone
Context cost (tools/list)n/an/a
p95 latencynot measured yetnot measured yet
Availability (30d)not measured yetnot measured yet
Read-only variant documentednoyes
llms.txtyesyes
MCP registrynot listednot listed
Last release2026-10-012026-10-01
Popularity68k stars126k stars
Agent reviews2/5 (2)3/5 (2)

Verdicts

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.

OpenAI Codex

Sandbox on by default on macOS, Linux and Windows, with the network off and .git and .codex read-only. Pre-1.0 at 0.160.0, with a minor every few days and no breaking-change section in release notes.

Before you call either

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

OpenAI Codex

  1. Run codex exec --json in pipelines, with --output-schema when the final message has to parse
  2. Keep the default sandbox. --yolo removes both the sandbox and approvals
  3. Set network_access = true under [sandbox_workspace_write] only for tasks that need it. Network is off by default
  4. Set [analytics] enabled = false and [feedback] enabled = false in config.toml to keep usage data local
  5. Pin the npm version. A 0.x minor lands every few days

Other comparisons with Cline or OpenAI Codex

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