Cline is a great alternative to Cursor if you are not willing to switch over to another (forked) editor.
However, it's baffling to me that by default Cline ignores `pkg/` folder that is common in Go projects. Check this issue - https://github.com/cline/cline/issues/927
I think Aider, Cline and Cursor are not far from each other in their capabilities.
Cursor was probably the most polished experience - especially their `Tab` autocomplete. However, I found this effect really interesting. Let's say 7 out of 10 times it's seamless, but there's uncanny valley of autocomplete in 3 out of 10 times - where you expect it to the right thing, but it either predicts wrong or takes a tad too long, 'breaking the immersion', if you will.
Cline does the job really well if you're in VSCode.
Aider is great if you prefer terminal based workflow, or do not want to commit to another editor. Another great thing in Aider is `//AI!` comment. You can start Aider in --watch-files mode and it will watch for instructions, and start executing them. This way I can work in my preferred editor and have a tool in the background performing AI tasks.
A slight edge in my case goes to Aider for this reason, despite the fact that it does not feel quite as polished as the other two.
How has no one pointed out the business models are different and result in entirely different products and priorities?
Cursor charges $20/mo. So their whole business model revolves around using less than $20 worth of tokens and cheaper models.
With Cline, you pay for your own tokens and can choose whichever model you like (uses openrouter).
You can see the difference almost immediately - everything is better. Context management isn’t kneecapped, edits are comprehensive, cline reads every file that is relevant into the context, and the UX is intuitive.
I was personally blown away — I tell it to do something complex in an existing codebase, and Cline just… does it? And it asks me questions along the way to make sure it’s in alignment with my goals.
This is how AI copilots should feel to use. Cline is by far the best option I’ve tried so far.
Note: I will say though - your token usage WILL be high. I have easily spent over $20 in a single night coding with cline. That’s the entire monthly subscription cost of Cursor spent within an evening.
But it’s easily worth it. Hell, I’ll spend $100 in an hour on tokens if it makes me more productive.
In their tool comparison section they did mention aider, but they did not mention RA.Aid (https://github.com/ai-christianson/RA.Aid, Apache 2.0), which puts aider in a full-fledged development agent.
The experience of using RA.Aid is similar to using cline (or Devin), but it is a simple CLI command and not tied to any IDE. In fact you could use tmux, nvim, and RA.Aid in chat mode and have an experience that is not far off from vscode with cline, cursor, or windsurf.
The architect mode in aider is basically a one step planning pass.
RA.Aid goes way beyond this. It will run fuzzy find, ripgrep, directory listings, web search via, ask the expert (reasoning models), multiple task planning, execution of shell commands and unit tests, etc.
It essentially follows a research, planning, and implementation cycle much like a human SWE would.
Have you tried windsrf ( or more questionable trae)? They seem to be cursor alternative. I would like to know how they would compare it terms of UX to cline and cursor which I did not use. Aider is nice but I didn't try it much because I used it with Gemini API and aider complained about more deviating too much. So probably not aider fault.
However, it's baffling to me that by default Cline ignores `pkg/` folder that is common in Go projects. Check this issue - https://github.com/cline/cline/issues/927
I think Aider, Cline and Cursor are not far from each other in their capabilities.
Cursor was probably the most polished experience - especially their `Tab` autocomplete. However, I found this effect really interesting. Let's say 7 out of 10 times it's seamless, but there's uncanny valley of autocomplete in 3 out of 10 times - where you expect it to the right thing, but it either predicts wrong or takes a tad too long, 'breaking the immersion', if you will.
Cline does the job really well if you're in VSCode. Aider is great if you prefer terminal based workflow, or do not want to commit to another editor. Another great thing in Aider is `//AI!` comment. You can start Aider in --watch-files mode and it will watch for instructions, and start executing them. This way I can work in my preferred editor and have a tool in the background performing AI tasks.
A slight edge in my case goes to Aider for this reason, despite the fact that it does not feel quite as polished as the other two.