Cline
Open-source autonomous AI coding agent that runs as a VS Code / Cursor / Windsurf extension. Creates and edits files, runs terminal commands, browses the web, and uses MCP — all with per-step approval or full autonomy. Bring-your-own-model: supports Anthropic, Google (Gemini CLI free tier), OpenAI, OpenRouter, Grok 3 free, ollama local, and SAP AI Core.
Why it matters
Cline is the canonical free, open-source alternative to cursor for developers who want full data control and provider flexibility. Pairs with continue (autocomplete) for a complete cursor-replacement stack on top of plain VS Code.
Notable updates (v3.18)
- Gemini CLI provider: 1,000 free daily Gemini 2.5 Pro requests via personal Google account
- Claude Code CLI as a backend provider
- Claude 4 optimization: production diff-edit failure rate 10% → 6%
- Self-knowledge: queries its own docs via web_fetch
- 35 new MCP servers (AWS-heavy: DynamoDB, EKS, CloudWatch, Cost Explorer)
- Auto-approve modes with terminal output size constraints
See Cline v3.18 walkthrough for full release notes.
Combined with other tools
- continue — Continue handles autocomplete/inline-edit, Cline handles multi-file/agentic edits. The combo replaces Cursor entirely for free.
- ollama — drives Cline locally with DeepSeek, Qwen, etc.
- openrouter — unified API gateway including free DeepSeek tiers
Sources in this wiki
- Cline v3.18 HUGE UPDATE (WorldofAI, 2025-06-27)
- VSCode + Cline + Continue (Nathan Sebhastian, 2025-04-09)