Cline

Hybrid (offline or cloud)

VS Code extension that runs a full agent loop locally — reads, writes, runs commands, asks first.

Editorial verdict: “Best IDE-integrated agent that fully respects 'all local' as a first-class option.

Coding agent
Free
Apache-2.0
4.6 / 5
GitHub ★ 30,000

Compatibility at a glance

Which runtime + OS combos this app works against. Source of truth for "will it run on my setup?"

§ Runtimes supported
ollamaopenai-compatanthropicopenai
§ OS / platform
macoslinuxwindows
§ Hardware + model hint
Minimum VRAM
24 GB
Recommended starter model
Qwen 2.5 Coder 32B Q4_K_M

What it is

Cline (formerly Claude Dev) is a VS Code extension that runs an agent loop end-to-end: plan → read files → propose edits → ask permission → write → run → verify. Supports Ollama and any OpenAI-compatible endpoint, so the entire loop can be local. Strong UX for users who want IDE-integrated agents without the Cursor cloud lock-in.

✓ Strengths

  • +Best-in-class permission UX — asks before every write
  • +Solid plan-mode for non-trivial multi-file edits
  • +First-class Ollama support, not an afterthought

△ Caveats

  • Heavy on tokens — local models with weak context handling struggle
  • Plan-mode quality depends heavily on the underlying model