Cline

I've been running Cline as my daily driver for three months, and it's the most complete open-source coding agent I've found. It lives in VS Code's sidebar, which means you're already in your editor when the agent suggests changes. No context-switching to a separate chat window, no copy-paste dance. You point it at a task, it reads your codebase, writes code, runs terminal commands, and iterates until the tests pass. The MCP support is genuinely good. Configuration happens through Cline's sidebar UI, which is friendlier than editing JSON files by hand. It supports tools and resources, which covers most practical MCP servers. No prompts or sampling yet, but I've never missed them. I've connected it to filesystem servers, database query tools, and a custom API documentation server without friction. What sets Cline apart is the execution model. It doesn't just suggest code, it applies diffs directly to your files and can run shell commands with your approval. I've used it to scaffold entire features: "Add user authentication with JWT tokens and write integration tests." It reads the existing auth patterns in my codebase, writes the middleware, updates routes, generates tests, runs them, fixes failures, and commits when done. The approval gates are sensible: you review each file change and each terminal command before it runs. The rough edges are real. It sometimes gets stuck in loops when tests fail in unexpected ways. The token usage can spike on large codebases because it re-reads context frequently. And the UI occasionally lags when processing long responses. But the project moves fast. I've seen two of my early complaints fixed in monthly updates. Compared to Claude Desktop's MCP support, Cline is narrower but deeper. Claude Desktop is a general chat interface that happens to support MCP. Cline is a coding agent that uses MCP to extend what it can do inside your editor. If you're writing code, Cline's integration is tighter. If you're doing research or writing, Claude Desktop is better. I reach for Cline when I need to ship features, not when I need to think through architecture. It's best at well-defined tasks in codebases it can read in full. Point it at a monorepo with 500 files and it struggles. Point it at a focused service and it's frighteningly effective.