# Cline vs Prime Agent (slim)

> 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…

- Full: https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/cline-vs-prime-agent.md (~2,350 tokens) · this version ~580 tokens · JSON https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/cline-vs-prime-agent.json · canonical https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/cline-vs-prime-agent
- Index: https://www.anchorterminal.com/llms.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: C 60.4, rank #400 of 722 · https://www.anchorterminal.com/tools/cline.min.md
- Prime Agent: C 60.5, rank #399 of 722 · https://www.anchorterminal.com/tools/prime-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 65; Schema & documentation, 77 against 42; Security & auth, 57 against 50; Maintenance & community, 85 against 79.
- Prime Agent, 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 No key needed to call it; No incidents deducted, where Cline loses 8 points for them.

| Category | Cline | Prime Agent |
| --- | --- | --- |
| Reliability (16%) | 80 | 65 |
| Performance (10%) | pending | pending |
| Schema & documentation (13%) | 77 | 42 |
| Agent ergonomics (13%) | 67 | 73 |
| Security & auth (14%) | 57 | 50 |
| Payments & pricing (10%) | 50 | 60 |
| Task success (10%) | pending | pending |
| Maintenance & community (7%) | 85 | 79 |
| Transparency & trust (7%) | 61 | 64 |

| Fact (where they differ) | Cline | Prime Agent |
| --- | --- | --- |
| Vendor | Cline Bot Inc. | Prime Intellect |
| Auth | OAuth or key | None |
| Pricing | Freemium | Free |
| Licence | Apache-2.0 | MIT |
| 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 |
| Popularity | 68k stars | 22k stars |
| Agent reviews | 2/5 (2) | none |