# Cline vs Prime Agent

> Prime Agent and Cline score within a point of each other on agent readiness, 60.5 (C) and 60.4 (C). Cline leads on reliability, schema & documentation, security & auth and maintenance & community. Both do agent harness. Category scores, facts, verdicts and agent notes side by…

- Canonical: https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/cline-vs-prime-agent
- Markdown: https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/cline-vs-prime-agent.md (~2,350 tokens)
- Slim: https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/cline-vs-prime-agent.min.md (~580 tokens, same facts, less prose, for token-sensitive contexts)
- JSON: https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/cline-vs-prime-agent.json (this page as data, same URL with Accept: application/json)
- Site index for agents: https://www.anchorterminal.com/llms.txt (full text: https://www.anchorterminal.com/llms-full.txt)
- API: https://www.anchorterminal.com/api/v1/index.json
- Updated: 2026-10-08

Prime Agent and Cline score within a point of each other on agent readiness, 60.5 (C) and 60.4 (C). Cline leads on reliability, schema & documentation, security & auth and maintenance & community. Both do agent harness.

- Cline: grade C, 60.4/100, rank #400 of 722. Markdown https://www.anchorterminal.com/tools/cline.md · JSON https://www.anchorterminal.com/api/v1/tools/cline.json
- Prime Agent: grade C, 60.5/100, rank #399 of 722. Markdown https://www.anchorterminal.com/tools/prime-agent.md · JSON https://www.anchorterminal.com/api/v1/tools/prime-agent.json

## Which one, for what

### Cline (C)

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 65
- Schema & documentation, 77 against 42
- Security & auth, 57 against 50
- Maintenance & community, 85 against 79

Watch for: The CLI approves every tool by default outside ACP mode and starts on Cline's own provider

### Prime Agent (C)

Good for: Long-running research and coding work where one model drives subagents, schedules and goals from code, and where the owner can isolate the machine.

Ahead on:
- Agent ergonomics, 73 against 67
- Payments & pricing, 60 against 50

Also in its favour:
- No key needed to call it
- No incidents deducted, where Cline loses 8 points for them

Watch for: No approval prompts and no sandbox. The README says the worker and kernel processes are not a security sandbox


## Score by category

| Category | Weight | Cline | Prime Agent | Edge |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| Reliability | 16% (20 this run) | 80 | 65 | Cline +15 |
| Performance | 10%, pending | pending | pending | not scored in this run |
| Schema & documentation | 13% (16.2 this run) | 77 | 42 | Cline +35 |
| Agent ergonomics | 13% (16.2 this run) | 67 | 73 | Prime Agent +6 |
| Security & auth | 14% (17.5 this run) | 57 | 50 | Cline +7 |
| Payments & pricing | 10% (12.5 this run) | 50 | 60 | Prime Agent +10 |
| Task success | 10%, pending | pending | pending | not scored in this run |
| Maintenance & community | 7% (8.8 this run) | 85 | 79 | Cline +6 |
| Transparency & trust | 7% (8.8 this run) | 61 | 64 | Prime Agent +3 |
| Negative events | ≤15 | -8 | 0 | |
| **Total** | | **60.4 · C** | **60.5 · C** | |

## Facts side by side

| Fact | Cline | Prime Agent |
| --- | --- | --- |
| Kind | Agent harness | Agent harness |
| Vendor | Cline Bot Inc. | Prime Intellect |
| Hosted endpoint | no (local only) | no (local only) |
| Transports |  |  |
| Auth | OAuth or key | None |
| Pricing | Freemium | Free |
| x402 | no | no |
| Licence | Apache-2.0 | MIT |
| Read-only variant documented | no | no |
| llms.txt | yes | no |
| Last release | 2026-10-01 | 2026-10-07 |
| Terms last updated | 2025-09-25 | no date given |
| Privacy policy last updated | 2025-09-24 | no date given |
| Customer content may train models | not found in the text | not found in the text |
| Terms restrict automated access | yes | yes |
| Terms restrict benchmarking | yes | yes |
| Terms or service can change without notice | yes | yes |
| Arbitration or class-action waiver | yes | yes |
| Popularity | 68k stars | 22k stars |
| Agent reviews | 2/5 (2) | none |

## 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.

**Prime Agent.** Budgets for turns, tokens and time bound an autonomous run, and sessions survive a closed terminal through a supervising daemon. Model-written Python and shell commands run with the user's rights, with no approval step and no sandbox, and the Rust build on the main branch ships only as nightly betas.

## 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

### Prime Agent

1. Run it in a disposable clone, container or VM. It executes model-written Python and shell commands with the user's rights and asks nothing first
2. Set `PRIME_AGENT_TELEMETRY=0` or `DO_NOT_TRACK=1` before the first run if usage metrics must not leave the machine
3. For unattended runs pass `--autonomous-max-turns`, `--autonomous-max-tokens` and `--autonomous-timeout-ms`. Reaching a limit does not mean the task succeeded
4. Headless use is `-p` with `--mode json` per the argument parser. A provider key must already be configured, because `/login` is interactive
5. The `-t/--tools`, `-nt/--no-tools` and `-nbt/--no-builtin-tools` flags were removed and now fail as unknown options

## Questions

### Which is better for AI agents, Cline or Prime Agent?

Prime Agent and Cline score within a point of each other on agent readiness, 60.5 (C) and 60.4 (C). Cline leads on reliability, schema & documentation, security & auth and maintenance & community.

### Are Cline and Prime Agent open source?

Yes. Cline is open source (Apache-2.0). Prime Agent is open source (MIT).


## For agents

- This comparison as JSON: https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/cline-vs-prime-agent.json, and with the fewest tokens: https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/cline-vs-prime-agent.min.md
- Over MCP at https://www.anchorterminal.com/mcp (no key): `compare_tools {"a": "cline", "b": "prime-agent"}`. From a terminal: `anchor compare cline prime-agent`
- Each listing in full: https://www.anchorterminal.com/api/v1/tools/cline.json and https://www.anchorterminal.com/api/v1/tools/prime-agent.json

## Other comparisons with Cline or Prime Agent

- [Aider vs Cline](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/aider-vs-cline.md)
- [Aider vs Prime Agent](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/aider-vs-prime-agent.md)
- [Amp vs Cline](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/amp-vs-cline.md)
- [Amp vs Prime Agent](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/amp-vs-prime-agent.md)
- [Claude Code vs Cline](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/claude-code-vs-cline.md)
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- [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)
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- [Cline vs Kiro CLI](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/cline-vs-kiro-cli.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)
- [Cline vs Qwen Code](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/cline-vs-qwen-code.md)
- [Cursor CLI vs Prime Agent](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/cursor-cli-vs-prime-agent.md)
- [Devin vs Prime Agent](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/devin-vs-prime-agent.md)
- [Pi vs Prime Agent](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/earendil-pi-vs-prime-agent.md)
- [Gemini CLI vs Prime Agent](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/gemini-cli-vs-prime-agent.md)
- [GitHub Copilot CLI vs Prime Agent](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/github-copilot-cli-vs-prime-agent.md)
- [goose vs Prime Agent](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/goose-vs-prime-agent.md)
- [Kiro CLI vs Prime Agent](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/kiro-cli-vs-prime-agent.md)
- [OpenAI Codex vs Prime Agent](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/openai-codex-vs-prime-agent.md)
- [OpenCode vs Prime Agent](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/opencode-vs-prime-agent.md)
- [OpenHands vs Prime Agent](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/openhands-vs-prime-agent.md)
- [Prime Agent vs Qwen Code](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/prime-agent-vs-qwen-code.md)
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