Cline vs Roo Code
A side-by-side comparison of capabilities, autonomy, integrations, and pricing to help you choose.
Short answer: choose Cline if you want open-source autonomous coding agent for vs code and jetbrains (Supervised agent, freemium); choose Roo Code if you want open-source ai coding agent for vs code (a cline fork), now archived (Supervised agent, free).
| Cline | Roo Code | |
|---|---|---|
| What it is | Open-source autonomous coding agent for VS Code and JetBrains | Open-source AI coding agent for VS Code (a Cline fork), now archived |
| Type | agent | agent |
| Autonomy | Supervised agent | Supervised agent |
| Pricing | freemium · Free (open source); Teams reported at $20/mo | free · Free (open source); pay your own model providers |
| Best for | developers, mid-market, enterprise | developers |
| Deployment | self-hosted, saas | self-hosted |
| Modalities | text, code, browser | text, code |
| Models | model-agnostic | model-agnostic |
| Protocols | mcp, function-calling, rest-api | mcp, function-calling, rest-api |
| Integrations | VS Code, JetBrains, Anthropic, OpenAI, Google Gemini, AWS Bedrock | VS Code, Anthropic, OpenAI, Google Gemini, OpenRouter, AWS Bedrock |
| Capabilities | 4 documented | 4 documented |
Cline
- +Open source (Apache-2.0) with no inference markup; bring your own model keys
- +Plan/Act mode plus per-step approval makes autonomy controllable
- +MCP support, browser control, and adoption reported at large enterprises
- -Auto-approve can run consequential commands; oversight still recommended
- -Costs scale with the model you bring; heavy agentic runs can get expensive
Roo Code
- +Open source and model-agnostic with no inference markup (bring your own keys)
- +Multi-mode architecture (Architect/Code/Debug/Ask/Orchestrator) with per-mode tool permissions
- +MCP support and customizable modes gave fine-grained control over the agent
- -Shut down and archived on May 15, 2026; the extension is no longer maintained
- -Was VS Code-extension only, so it depended on your IDE and local environment
Which should you choose?
Cline is open-source autonomous coding agent for vs code and jetbrains, best for developers, mid-market, enterprise. Roo Code is open-source ai coding agent for vs code (a cline fork), now archived, best for developers. The right choice depends on the autonomy level you want, your existing integrations, and your budget, all compared above.