OHarness vs Cline
Choose Cline if you want the agent inside VS Code or JetBrains with Plan/Act modes and checkpoints. Choose OHarness if you work from the terminal or browser, switch vendors mid-task, and want deny rules that hold in every mode.
Cline’s side checked against its own documentation on . Sources are listed below.
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Side by side
| OHarness | Cline | |
|---|---|---|
| Form factor | Terminal UI, browser UI, desktop app (macOS) and a headless runner — one engine | VS Code and JetBrains extensions, CLI, desktop, Kanban, SDK, ACP for Zed/Neovim/Emacs |
| Licence and source | Free to use; npm packages MIT. Source repository not public yet | Apache-2.0, source public |
| Models | Anthropic, OpenAI and Gemini natively; any OpenAI-compatible endpoint; 30+ catalogued providers | Anthropic, OpenAI, Gemini, Bedrock, OpenRouter, DeepSeek, Qwen and 30+ more; OpenAI-compatible |
| Local models | Ollama, LM Studio and vLLM built in, no key | Ollama, LM Studio, Atomic Chat |
| Switching mid-session | /model mid-session; history is vendor-neutral, nothing converted | /model in the TUI; separate models for Plan and Act |
| MCP | Yes — stdio and Streamable HTTP, with OAuth for remote servers | Yes — stdio, streamable HTTP and legacy SSE |
| Permissions | Five modes plus allow/ask/deny rules in user, project and local scopes; deny beats bypass | Auto-approve per category; YOLO mode; CLI auto-approves by default |
| Sandbox | No OS sandbox — a policy gate on tool arguments. Use a container for confinement | Not documented; checkpoints in a shadow git repo for rollback |
| Subagents | Yes — isolated contexts, run in parallel | Yes — experimental, read-only, parallel |
| Headless | oharness-headless, JSONL on stdout | cline "<prompt>" --json |
| Price | Free with your own key or a local model; optional hosted plan | Free with your own key; Cline provider pay-as-you-go; ClinePass $9.99/month |
Where Cline is stronger
- Lives in the IDE — VS Code and JetBrains — with the diff view that implies.
- Checkpoints roll back changes without touching your real git history.
- Plan and Act modes with a different model for each.
- Public source and the widest range of surfaces: IDE, CLI, desktop, Kanban, SDK, ACP.
Where OHarness is stronger
- Ask-before-change is the default; Cline's CLI auto-approves by default.
- Deny rules are exact patterns you write, not a model's judgement of which commands are safe.
- History is vendor-neutral, so moving between vendors mid-task converts nothing.
- Terminal-first, with the same sessions in the browser and desktop app.
Which to choose
Cline, if you want the agent in your editor, with checkpoints and Plan/Act as the workflow.
OHarness, if you want a terminal or browser agent whose permissions are rules you can review in the repository.
Common questions
Is OHarness a VS Code extension like Cline?
No. OHarness runs as a terminal UI, a browser UI, a desktop app and a headless runner, all on one engine. It works alongside any editor rather than inside one.
Do OHarness and Cline both support MCP?
Yes. Cline supports stdio, streamable HTTP and legacy SSE servers. OHarness supports stdio and Streamable HTTP through its own client, with OAuth login for remote servers.
Sources
Spotted something out of date? Tell us and it will be corrected. More comparisons are on the guides page, and Claude Code alternatives covers what to check before switching.