Comparison · under IB-CODE-2026.2
Cline vs Cursor
| Cline | Cursor | |
|---|---|---|
| Vendor | Cline (OSS, Apache 2.0) | Anysphere |
| Pricing | Free extension + API tokens; Teams $20/user/mo for central billing; v3.2 auto-routing reduces typical API spend to $8-12/mo | Pro $20/mo + token-based SDK usage |
| Default model | Model-agnostic with v3.2 auto-routing (picks cheapest capable model per task) | Composer 2 (proprietary) — switchable to Opus 4.7, GPT-5.5, Gemini 3.5 Pro |
| CLI surface | — | ✓ |
| Eval status | queued | queued |
Comparison pending — neither side evaluated yet
Both Cline and Cursor are currently unevaluated under IB-CODE-2026.2. This page will update as evaluations land.
Want this comparison sooner? Vendors can commission an evaluation to bump their tool up the queue (with full editorial independence on the verdict). Readers can email hello@indiebench.dev to vote for which comparison ships next.
About each tool
Cline
Cline is the high-adoption VS Code extension for agentic coding. Large user base, Apache 2.0, model-agnostic. v3.2 (March 2026) auto-routing cuts typical monthly API cost by selecting the cheapest capable model per task. Architectural note: Cline has no standalone CLI binary — evaluations under IB-C…
Cursor
Cursor is the IDE-first agentic coding tool with $2B ARR by Feb 2026 (fastest B2B SaaS scaling on record). The Cursor SDK released April 29 2026 exposes the agent harness programmatically for the first time — codebase indexing, semantic search, subagent spawning, hooks, MCP. Evaluations under IB-COD…