Amp vs Cline

Pick two tools from the same category to compare side-by-side.

	Amp Frontier coding agent originally built at Sourcegraph, now developed by the independent Amp Frontier Corporation.	Cline Open-source coding agent that runs as an IDE extension and CLI with bring-your-own-key model access.
Category	harness	harness
Vendor type	commercial	hybrid
Pricing	usage	freemium
Strengths	+ Multi-surface workflow across CLI, editor plugins, web, and mobile remote control + Pay-as-you-go pricing with no markup for individual users + Extensible via plugins and MCP servers + Independent, self-described profitable company focused solely on the agent	+ Open source (Apache 2.0) with full BYOK model flexibility + Plan/Act split gives explicit human approval before execution + MCP support and .clinerules for repo-specific configuration + Runs in VS Code, JetBrains, Cursor, and as a CLI
Tradeoffs	− Closed source, unlike terminal-agent alternatives such as OpenCode or Aider − Opinionated model selection managed by Amp rather than freely user-configured − Fast-changing product and branding (recently consolidated Amp Neo back into Amp)	− Token costs fall directly on the user and can run high with frontier models − Per-step approval workflow is slower than fully autonomous harnesses
Used in stacks	0	0