head to head · open source
Cline vs qwen-code
Cline has 68,599 GitHub stars, 7,418 forks, 1,288 open issues and last shipped today. qwen-code has 27,934 stars, 3,059 forks, 1,422 open issues and last shipped today. Cline leads on adoption by 146% (68,599 vs 27,934 stars). Cline is written in TypeScript under Apache-2.0; qwen-code is written in TypeScript under Apache-2.0. Cline has attracted 11% as many forks as stars, qwen-code 11%. qwen-code was the more recently maintained of the two, and both are self-hostable with no licence fee.
Two open source projects, one decision. Both are free and self-hostable — the differences are community size, license terms, language stack and release pace.
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Side by side
| Cline | qwen-code | |
|---|---|---|
| GitHub stars | ★ 69K | ★ 28K |
| License | Apache-2.0 | Apache-2.0 |
| Written in | TypeScript | TypeScript |
| Last push | 2026-09-18 | 2026-09-18 |
| Forks | ⑂ 7.4K | ⑂ 3.1K |
| Self-hosting | Yes | Yes |
| Data ownership | Your server | Your server |
pick Cline if
- You weight community size — 69K stars and counting
- You want the Apache-2.0 license terms
- Your stack matches TypeScript
- You value the larger contributor base for long-term maintenance
pick qwen-code if
- You want the qwen-code feature set and don't need the biggest community
- You prefer the Apache-2.0 license terms
- Your stack matches TypeScript
- You evaluated both and qwen-code fits your workflow better
About Cline
Cline is an open source AI coding agent that operates across multiple interfaces: as a CLI tool, desktop application, VS Code extension, JetBrains plugin, and SDK. It lives in the developer tooling ecosystem and is built with TypeScript under the Apache 2.0 license. The project solves the problem of fragmented AI assisted coding workflows by unifying agent capabilities—code generation, command execution, project wide edits, and human in the loop approval—into a single extensible engine that works consistently across environments.
read the full Cline overview →
About qwen-code
Qwen Code is an open source AI coding agent that runs in the terminal, with additional interfaces for editors, desktop, browser, and chat. It is written in TypeScript and released under the Apache 2.0 license, and it lives in the AI and machine learning ecosystem as a development platform for agentic coding. The project is maintained by QwenLM and published on npm as @qwen code/qwen code , with a documentation site hosted at qwenlm.github.io. It ships as a command line tool named qwen that opens an interactive session inside a project directory.
read the full qwen-code overview →
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Frequently asked questions
Is Cline or qwen-code more popular?
Cline has 68,599 GitHub stars and qwen-code has 27,934. Cline has the larger community by that measure.
Are Cline and qwen-code free?
Both are open source. Cline is licensed under Apache-2.0 and qwen-code under Apache-2.0. Neither carries a licence fee.
What is the difference between Cline and qwen-code?
Cline is written in TypeScript and qwen-code in TypeScript. The practical differences are community size, licence terms, language stack and release cadence — all compared in the table above.
Which should I choose, Cline or qwen-code?
Choose Cline if you want the larger community (68,599 stars) or its Apache-2.0 licence terms. Choose qwen-code if its feature set, stack or Apache-2.0 licence fits better. Both are self-hostable.