| Cline is a great alternative to Cursor if you are not willing to switch over to another (forked) editor. However, it's baffling to me that by default Cline ignores `pkg/` folder that is common in Go projects. Check this issue - https://github.com/cline/cline/issues/927 I think Aider, Cline and Cursor are not far from each other in their capabilities. Cursor was probably the most polished experience - especially their `Tab` autocomplete. However, I found this effect really interesting. Let's say 7 out of 10 times it's seamless, but there's uncanny valley of autocomplete in 3 out of 10 times - where you expect it to the right thing, but it either predicts wrong or takes a tad too long, 'breaking the immersion', if you will. Cline does the job really well if you're in VSCode.
Aider is great if you prefer terminal based workflow, or do not want to commit to another editor. Another great thing in Aider is `//AI!` comment. You can start Aider in --watch-files mode and it will watch for instructions, and start executing them. This way I can work in my preferred editor and have a tool in the background performing AI tasks. A slight edge in my case goes to Aider for this reason, despite the fact that it does not feel quite as polished as the other two. |
Cursor charges $20/mo. So their whole business model revolves around using less than $20 worth of tokens and cheaper models.
With Cline, you pay for your own tokens and can choose whichever model you like (uses openrouter).
You can see the difference almost immediately - everything is better. Context management isn’t kneecapped, edits are comprehensive, cline reads every file that is relevant into the context, and the UX is intuitive.
I was personally blown away — I tell it to do something complex in an existing codebase, and Cline just… does it? And it asks me questions along the way to make sure it’s in alignment with my goals.
This is how AI copilots should feel to use. Cline is by far the best option I’ve tried so far.
Note: I will say though - your token usage WILL be high. I have easily spent over $20 in a single night coding with cline. That’s the entire monthly subscription cost of Cursor spent within an evening.
But it’s easily worth it. Hell, I’ll spend $100 in an hour on tokens if it makes me more productive.