Was ist Cline?
Cline is an open-source, autonomous coding agent that runs as a VS Code (and JetBrains) extension, capable of creating and editing files, running terminal commands, and using a browser to test its own changes — with the developer approving each step along the way rather than the agent working entirely unsupervised. It's positioned as a fully open alternative to closed-source agentic coding tools.
It supports a wide range of model providers — Anthropic, Google Gemini, OpenAI, OpenRouter, AWS Bedrock, GCP Vertex, Groq, Cerebras, DeepSeek, and local models via Ollama, among others — so you're never locked into a single vendor's model or pricing. That flexibility, combined with being free and open source, has made it one of the most widely adopted agentic coding tools among developers who want full control over their toolchain.
Cline itself is completely free for individual developers, who bring their own API key and pay their chosen model provider directly. A Teams tier is free through the tool's early rollout period, then moves to $20/month per user (with the first 10 seats always free), adding team collaboration and centralized billing.
Hauptfunktionen von Cline
- Autonomous multi-step agent: Creates and edits files, runs terminal commands, and tests changes with a browser.
- Human-in-the-loop approval: Requests approval at each step rather than acting entirely unsupervised.
- Broad model support: Works with Anthropic, Gemini, OpenAI, OpenRouter, Bedrock, Vertex, Groq, and local Ollama models.
- Open source: Fully open source and auditable, with no vendor lock-in.
Anwendungsfälle für Cline
- Delegate a multi-step coding task to an autonomous agent inside VS Code
- Test AI-made code changes automatically via built-in browser testing
- Use a self-hosted or local model with an agentic coding workflow
- Standardize a team on an open-source coding agent instead of a closed-source subscription tool