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.
I use syncthing to sync from paperless data folder which runs on Kubernetes (k3s).
It's a one-way sync. Paperless is the authoritative location. The only reason I back up to Google drive is so that my phone has easy access to the documents I may need on the go.
Disclaimer: I don't have a horse in this race, and don't use Jetbrains products.
I read the dialog, and the contents is extremely clear - I can send the non-anonymized data to help improve the product, or not. It doesn't say this is a required action to use the plugin. Less is more. I prefer less text with the clear prompt to consent or not. I don't think this needs a fine print of pages long terms and conditions.
I ran over a 1000 searches as an early adopter last month and this is a welcome change. I also notice how often I search for the same thing over and over, or use product name searches using Kagi as a gateway. I think this shows how poor my learning comprehension / documenting habits are. Thanks for bumping up the limits, though.
I want to utilise lenses and optimise my search better. Any tips?
What makes a great difference is search quality is blocking sites you don't like/don't want to see. This propagates across all types of results (eg images/news too)
I use lenses for specialised searches (I have one for HN/Reddit) ND recipes (to avoid spammy sites). My favorite lenses are "non-commercial" (to surface results from the non-commercial part of the web) and "forums" (usually similar thing but focusing on human comments).
Now I find that I rely heavily on the firefox smart bar to go to pages I've been to before, as well as rely on "bangs" more, which don't count toward the searches.
On a scale where one extreme is buying a refractometer to optimize every last aspect of coffee making, and the other end is instant coffee from Lidl, there is a wide range in the middle.
V60, Aeropress (only one needed, but I like both for some variety), a decent hand grinder, and good beans is hardly that much money (amortized over years of use, or "cost per wear"), let alone maintenance.
I bought these around 10 years ago (well, v60 twice, I broke it, and I like it ceramic, and I have to buy beans every few weeks), and they are still going strong. The process takes about 5 minutes total time, including brewing. I would never replace it with an instant coffee, I would rather stop drinking coffee altogether.
It does make traveling a bit tricky, as I refuse to carry additional gear around, and don't always have access to good coffee places.
I have to admit, in the beginning, I was looking for the holy grail setup like with other hobbies, but luckily, was not wealthy enough to sink a ton of money into it.
Same here, it's the Pareto principle in action. I even run a Chemex filter under a basic Mr. Coffee which works great since most of the benefit of a Chemex is its filters.
v60 is a really great middle ground. If I’m traveling and the coffee is garbage I’ll happily drink tea.
What do you do for beans? I got tired of paying $20-$30/lb for decent stuff so I roast my own. Costs $6-$10/lb for beans from Sweet Maria’s, which me and my wife go through in about a week.
I think FPS and reaction type games are not it's strengths, but some third person action / adventure games have been super fun. Sometimes I forgot it was not running games locally. Impressive tech.
I went to see his live performance in Amsterdam a few years back. The show had been postponed due to back injury but it ended up happening a year later, and it was mesmerizing.
No it's not less dependency on 3rd parties, it's more dependency on TSMC. Before they were able to play Intel vs TSMC, it's not the case anymore. Then you add the geopolitical issue of Taiwan vs China and the risks level keep increasing.
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.
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