Cline and Roo Code: The Open-Source 'Free Cursor' Coding Agents
Cline and Roo Code brought bring-your-own-model agentic coding to VS Code. Here's what operators need to know, including Roo's May 2026 shutdown.
The pitch was simple: get autonomous agentic coding inside the VS Code you already use, pay only for the model tokens you consume, and own the whole stack. Cline and Roo Code were the two tools that made that pitch credible. The story has taken a sharp turn since — Roo Code shut down on May 15, 2026 — but the architecture they pioneered is very much alive, and operators evaluating coding toolchains still need to understand what it means. Here’s the full picture.
What These Tools Actually Are
Cline is a free, open-source VS Code extension that brings autonomous AI coding to your editor. It works with local models or cloud APIs, handles multi-file changes, and runs terminal commands without proprietary lock-in.
Roo Code was an open-source VS Code extension that started as a fork of Cline. It was a coding agent that could make changes directly in the editor, run terminal commands, and integrate with different tools using MCP servers.
The key distinction from tools like Cursor or Windsurf is architectural. Instead of bundling AI model costs into a subscription, Cline separates platform fees from inference costs: you pay Cline for the platform and pay AI providers directly for model usage. This bring-your-own-API-key (BYOK) model creates cost transparency but requires tracking monthly expenses.
Roo Code Is Gone — Here’s What Happened
This is the part any current-day evaluation needs to lead with. The archive announcement landed April 20, 2026; the actual shutdown happened May 15. Roo Code Cloud and Roo Code Router are offline, unused balances refunded, and the extension repo is read-only.
The team’s reason for shutting it down is unusually specific: they do not believe IDEs are the future of coding. They bet the company on Roomote, a Slack-first cloud agent.
Roo Code hit 3 million cumulative downloads and 1.6 million residual marketplace installs at archive. It was one of the most important open-source agentic coding projects of the past two years.
The community response was fast. A community fork (Zoo Code at zoocode.dev) carries the VS Code plugin forward with an official handoff.
Zoo Code is a community fork of Roo Code. It has the same features, the same settings structure, and the same Apache 2.0 license. Existing Roo Code configurations should work with minimal changes.
Cline Is Still the Category Leader
For operators who want an active, well-funded project, Cline is the right anchor. Cline is the most popular open-source AI coding extension with 5M+ installs, 58K+ GitHub stars, and support for every major LLM.
The project is well funded, with a $32M raise from Emergence Capital and Pace Capital in 2025.
The VS Code extension is free and open-source.
Cline’s team features (Open Source Teams) are free through Q1 2026, then $20/month with the first 10 seats always free. Enterprise pricing is custom.
Cline is an open-source VS Code extension that connects to any major LLM provider through your own API key. It reads your files, edits them autonomously, runs terminal commands, and integrates with external tools through the Model Context Protocol.
The BYOK Model: When It Beats a Subscription
A light day might cost $0.50. A heavy refactoring session with Claude Sonnet could run $5–8. For developers who code intermittently, this pay-as-you-go structure often works out cheaper than a $20/month subscription.
The model flexibility is what operators on mixed or constrained infra consistently find most valuable. You choose your model — this is the architectural decision that separates Cline from nearly everything else.
The tool supports multiple AI providers, including Anthropic, OpenAI, Google Gemini, AWS Bedrock, and local models through Ollama.
What Roo Code specifically added — and what Zoo Code now carries forward — was per-mode model routing. One of Roo Code’s best features is Modes — different personas for different task types. Each mode can have a different model, allowing you to run cheap models for routine work and expensive models only for hard reasoning.
That pattern matters for teams. Running a fast, cheap model in “Ask” mode and reserving a frontier model for “Architect” or heavy refactor tasks is a real cost lever, not a theoretical one.
How the Comparison to Cursor Lands
Cursor is the benchmark everyone uses, so the numbers are worth grounding. Cursor Pro is $20/month, Pro+ is $60/month, Teams seats run $40 (Standard) to $120 (Premium) per user/month, and Enterprise is custom-priced.
These changes are live for all new customers immediately, and for renewing customers on billing cycles starting July 1st, 2026.
Cline is free and works inside standard VS Code. You keep your existing extensions, settings, and keybindings. But Cline’s UI is simpler — a sidebar panel rather than Cursor’s multi-mode interface — and you manage model configuration yourself.
The tradeoff is real: Cursor buys you a polished product experience, integrated model routing, and a growing Cloud Agents layer. Cline and its BYOK peers buy you full stack ownership, no seat ceiling, and no vendor lock-in on model spend. For a team of ten where even half the developers are heavy users, the arithmetic can flip quickly.
For a direct breakdown of how these tools line up, see our Cursor vs. Windsurf and Claude Code vs. Cursor comparison pages. For the terminal-native equivalent, Claude Code is the dominant alternative if you’re willing to leave the IDE. GitHub Copilot remains the default for teams already inside the GitHub ecosystem.
Who Should Still Use This Stack
Choose Cline if you want model freedom (any LLM including GPT, Gemini, or local Ollama models), IDE integration (VS Code, JetBrains, Cursor, Zed), explicit approval for every AI action, and zero subscription cost. It’s best for cost-conscious developers and teams with existing model contracts.
Former Roo Code users have two reasonable paths: migrate to Cline (the upstream project, most stable, best funded) or move to Zoo Code (the community fork, most feature-compatible with existing Roo configs). Both honor the BYOK model. Both are Apache 2.0.
The teams that get the least value from this stack are those who want a managed, polished product with predictable support SLAs and no configuration overhead. That’s a legitimate need — it’s just what Cursor or Windsurf are for.
Bottom Line
Cline remains the strongest open-source VS Code coding agent available today — well-funded, actively maintained, and genuinely free for solo use. Roo Code’s shutdown is a reminder that even popular open-source projects can pivot away from the IDE entirely, and operators should weight project funding and roadmap stability when choosing a tool for team-wide rollout. If you’re evaluating the BYOK-in-VS-Code category right now, start with Cline; if you miss Roo Code’s mode-routing behavior specifically, Zoo Code is the most direct continuity path.