Cline
Category: AI Developer Tools
Cline is an open-source AI coding agent designed to seamlessly integrate into developer workflows, providing automation and efficiency. Cline was founded in 2024. The company is led by Saoud Rizwan. Based in San Francisco, USA. Team size: N/A. Total funding raised: $32M. Latest round: Series A. Key investors include Emergence Capital, Pace Capital, 1984 Ventures, Essence VC, Cox Exponential.
- Founded
- 2024
- Headquarters
- San Francisco, USA
- Team size
- N/A
- Total funding
- $32M
Value proposition
To transform and streamline the developer workflow by providing a powerful, open-source AI coding agent with full transparency, model choice, and developer control.
Products and solutions
Open-source AI coding agents for IDEs and CLI, Cline Teams enterprise platform, Cline SDK agent runtime, ClinePass subscription for curated open-weight models (launched June 29, 2026), Cline Desktop with parallel agent sessions, scheduled tasks, and plugins/MCP marketplace (announced September 14, 2026)
Unique value
Cline's uniqueness lies in its open-source nature, transparent pricing with BYO API keys, model-agnostic access, and a vibrant global community of developers who contribute to and fork the project.
Target customer
Software Developers and Enterprise Engineering Teams
Industries served
Software Development, Technology, Enterprise IT
Technology advantage
The primary advantages are: (1) strong active open-source community driving rapid development, (2) transparent BYO-key pricing with no vendor lock-in, (3) model-agnostic access to any LLM, and (4) client-side architecture keeping code on user infrastructure.
How they differentiate
Cline's open-source strategy, transparent BYO-key pricing, and model-agnostic architecture set it apart. This approach encourages widespread adoption and community-driven innovation, which can be a competitive advantage over closed-source alternatives.
Main competitors
GitHub Copilot, Cursor, Devin, Claude Code, Windsurf
Key partnerships
Cline is the coding agent of choice for Fortune 500 companies including Samsung, SAP, Oracle, and Salesforce. Cline Teams enterprise platform launched July 2025.
Notable customers
Samsung, SAP, Oracle, Salesforce
Major milestones
June 2024: Originally released as Claude Dev by Saoud Rizwan, October 2024: Renamed to Cline, July 2025: Raised $32M in combined Seed and Series A funding led by Emergence Capital and Pace Capital, July 2025: Launched Cline Teams enterprise platform, 2025-2026: Adopted by Fortune 500 companies including Samsung, SAP, Oracle, and Salesforce, 2026: 8M+ developers, 63k+ GitHub stars
Growth metrics
More than 11M developers reported by Cline on September 2, 2026. Official homepage displays 11M+ installs across platforms, 70.2k GitHub stars, and 250+ contributors (checked October 12, 2026).
Market positioning
Cline is positioned as an open-source AI coding agent, providing a core technology that developers and enterprises can build upon. This strategy places them at the center of a growing ecosystem, influencing the direction of AI-powered development.
Geographic focus
Global, with enterprise customers including Samsung, SAP, Oracle, and Salesforce indicating significant international reach across North America, Europe, and Asia.
Patents and IP
Information on patents is not publicly available. As an open-source company, their primary IP is in their codebase, community, and brand.
About Saoud Rizwan
Founder and CEO at Cline with 10+ years of software engineering experience, previously built iOS frameworks and contributed to open-source projects.
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Official website: https://cline.bot