Cline vs Continue
as AI assistants see them, week of 2026-09-14
Cline and Continue are neck-and-neck overall, scoring 18 and 16 out of 100, and both get named in 23 of 70 answers. Head-to-head, Continue edges ahead slightly, coming out more often named in 5 questions versus Cline's 4, with 11 ties. Cline scores best with Claude (31) and worst with Gemini (4), while Continue flips that pattern, scoring highest with Gemini (35) and lowest with ChatGPT (13). Both show up in every answer for "best free AI coding assistants," "VS Code," and "open-source," but neither is ever named for beginners, pull request review, or terminal use.
Head to head
| metric | Cline | Continue |
|---|---|---|
| score | 18 | 16 |
| questions won | 13 | 11 |
By assistant
Cline
| assistant | score | named in, this week | usual spot, this week |
|---|---|---|---|
| ChatGPT | 16 | 30% of answers | #6.7 |
| Claude | 31 | 60% of answers | #7.3 |
| Gemini | 4 | 10% of answers | #11.0 |
| Perplexity | 13 | 20% of answers | #4.3 |
Continue
| assistant | score | named in, this week | usual spot, this week |
|---|---|---|---|
| ChatGPT | 13 | 20% of answers | #4.8 |
| Claude | 16 | 35% of answers | #9.3 |
| Gemini | 35 | 80% of answers | #9.6 |
| Perplexity | 14 | 20% of answers | #3.8 |
Where they differ
Only Cline gets named for
- What are the best AI coding agents that can work across a whole codebase?
- Which AI coding tool is best for writing tests?
- What's the best AI coding assistant for a solo developer building a SaaS?
Only Continue gets named for
- What's the best AI coding assistant for Python?
More comparisons
- Cline vs OpenAI Codex
- Aider vs Cline
- Amazon Q Developer vs Cline
- Cline vs JetBrains AI Assistant
- Amazon Q Developer vs Continue
- Continue vs JetBrains AI Assistant
Not sold on either?
Scores count how often each assistant names a product, weighted by position. How the score works · Full AI coding assistants leaderboard