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Amp vs Cline

A side-by-side comparison of Amp and Cline, two Agent tools, drawn from Ignaite's continuously-verified listings.

Compared from listings verified as of

Amp

Agent

Agentic coding tool from Sourcegraph for terminal and editor.

View Amp

Cline

Agent

Open-source autonomous coding agent in VS Code. BYO key.

View Cline

At a glance

Feature comparison of Amp and Cline
AttributeAmpCline
CategoryAgentAgent
Pricing (differs)FREEMIUMBYO KEY
License (differs)ProprietaryOpen source
Deployment (differs)CloudLocal
Platforms (differs)CLI, VS Code extensionVS Code extension
Model support (differs)Multi-modelBYO key / model
Vendor (differs)SourcegraphCline Bot Inc.
Capabilities (differs)
  • Autonomous coding agent
  • Terminal / CLI agent
  • IDE integration
  • Code review
  • Autonomous coding agent
  • Code generation
  • MCP server
  • Multi-agent orchestration

The honest brief

Amp

Shareable, searchable agent 'threads' for the whole team, billed pay-as-you-go at zero markup over model prices.

  • Zero-markup pay-as-you-go pricing
  • Shareable/searchable team threads
  • Routes across frontier models
  • Works in terminal and editors
  • Closed source
  • Usage-metered costs can be unpredictable
  • Newer than Cursor/Copilot
  • Best value tied to Sourcegraph workflows

Cline

BYO-key VS Code agent that shows and asks approval for every edit and command — no markup, no lock-in.

  • No vendor markup on token costs
  • Approves every edit/command before running
  • Bring any model (Claude, local, etc.)
  • Plan/Act split for review before changes
  • BYO-key means you pay provider token costs
  • VS Code only, no standalone IDE
  • Slower than Cursor on equivalent tasks
  • No codebase indexing or background agents

When to pick which

Both cover Autonomous coding agent.

Pick Amp if you need Terminal / CLI agent, IDE integration, and Code review.

  • Terminal / CLI agent (primary capability)
  • IDE integration (secondary capability)
  • Code review (secondary capability)

Pick Cline if you need Code generation, MCP server, and Multi-agent orchestration.

  • Code generation (primary capability)
  • MCP server (primary capability)
  • Multi-agent orchestration (secondary capability)

They also differ on:

Pricing
FREEMIUM · BYO KEY
License
Proprietary · Open source
Deployment
Cloud · Local
Platforms
CLI, VS Code extension · VS Code extension
Model support
Multi-model · BYO key / model
Amp detailsCline detailsAll Agent apps