Move your team from Cline to Aider.
Each person gets a short interview, then a personalized step-by-step guide showing exactly where their saved work, prompts, and projects land in Aider — and the few things that need a manual step, walked through. You send one invite; nobody becomes the help desk, and nothing in Cline is changed or cancelled. Want to see where you’re paying for both first? Run the free audit.
Both tools record AI-driven changes in a way that lets you review or undo them. Aider auto-commits after every edit to your actual git repository, so `git log`, `git diff`, and `git revert` work natively against aider's changes. Each commit is tagged with '(aider)' in author metadata, making them easy to filter. Cline instead stores checkpoints in a separate shadow git repo that does not touch your real git history; from the conversation view you can restore files, rewind the conversation, or compare diffs at any checkpoint. To switch from aider to Cline and preserve the same safety net: Cline checkpoints handle rollback automatically — just enable them in Cline settings (on by default). After a Cline session, run a normal `git commit` yourself to record the final state in your real repo. To switch from Cline to aider: aider's auto-commits replace Cline's shadow checkpoints — each aider edit lands in git automatically, so you get a full `git log` of AI changes instead of a conversation-scoped rollback UI.
- Warning: Aider's auto-commits go into your real git history and are visible to teammates and CI; Cline's checkpoints are local to the shadow repo and are not pushed — you must do a real `git commit` after a Cline session to persist changes.
- Warning: Aider generates AI-written commit messages following Conventional Commits by default; Cline does not write commit messages — you write them yourself when you commit after the session.
- Warning: Cline's checkpoint restore UI is available only in the VS Code extension; the CLI and Kanban do not expose checkpoint rollback controls.
Both tools give the AI awareness of your codebase beyond the currently open file. Aider builds an automatic repo map — a structural index of all files with key classes, functions, and type signatures — and sends the most relevant portions with every request; you do not need to manually point it at files. Cline relies on @-mentions: type @/path/to/file to inject a specific file, @/folder/ for a directory tree, or @problems to pull in current workspace errors. To move from aider to Cline: identify which files aider was regularly including (check chat history or `/tokens` output to see context usage) and build a set of @-mentions for those files in the Cline chat. Save frequently used combinations as a custom rule in .clinerules/ so they are described to Cline at session start. To move from Cline to aider: replace @file mentions with `/add file` commands in the aider session; aider's repo map will then extend coverage to the wider codebase automatically.
- Warning: Aider's repo map is automatic and global — it indexes the entire git repo without manual configuration; Cline's @-mentions are manual per session, requiring the user to know which files are relevant upfront.
- Warning: Aider's map token budget defaults to 1,000 tokens and is dynamically adjusted; Cline's @-folder mention can inject very large amounts of content with no automatic trimming, potentially exhausting the model's context window.
- Warning: Cline can fetch URL context via @https://... mentions; aider has a separate web-scrape-context capability and does not support URL @-mentions in the same inline syntax.
Both tools support persistent markdown files that inject coding standards and project conventions into every AI interaction without repeating them in chat. To move from aider to Cline: take your existing CONVENTIONS.md (or any file loaded via `/read` or `--read`) and copy it into a .clinerules/ directory at the project root, naming it anything with a .md extension. Cline will automatically combine all .md files in .clinerules/ into its instruction set. Check it into version control so teammates get the same rules. To move from Cline to aider: copy your .clinerules/*.md files to a single CONVENTIONS.md (or keep them separate and pass multiple `--read` flags); add `read: CONVENTIONS.md` to .aider.conf.yml so it loads automatically at every aider startup. Aider marks convention files as read-only and caches them for prompt efficiency. Cline also reads .cursorrules and AGENTS.md, so existing convention files from other tools are picked up automatically.
- Warning: Aider's convention files are globally read-only (the AI cannot edit them); Cline has no such enforcement — a file in .clinerules/ is visible to the AI and could theoretically be edited if you ask Cline to modify it.
- Warning: Cline supports conditional rules via YAML frontmatter glob patterns, activating rules only for specific file types; aider has no equivalent scoping — all convention files apply to every edit.
- Warning: Aider's community conventions library (github.com/Aider-AI/conventions) provides ready-made files; Cline has no equivalent public library, so you author rules from scratch or use /newrule to scaffold them.
Both tools can run linters or test suites and feed failures back to the AI for automatic fixing. Aider has built-in lint/test hooks: start aider with `--test-cmd 'npm test' --auto-test` and it runs the test command after each edit, re-prompting the model with any non-zero exit output until tests pass. Custom linters per language are set with `--lint-cmd`. Cline achieves the same loop via terminal execution: ask Cline to run `npm test` or `eslint src/` in the terminal, let it read the output, and instruct it to fix any errors — Cline will iterate through edits and re-runs autonomously. To migrate from aider to Cline: remove the `--test-cmd` flag and instead tell Cline in chat 'run tests after each change and fix any failures'; Cline will call the terminal tool to run tests and loop on errors. To migrate from Cline to aider: add `--test-cmd` and `--auto-test` flags so aider runs the same command automatically without needing a chat instruction.
- Warning: Aider's lint/test loop is fully automatic and configured at startup via flags — it requires no per-session chat instruction; Cline's loop is conversational and must be triggered or described each session unless embedded in a .clinerules file.
- Warning: Aider runs built-in linters for most languages automatically after every edit (disable with --no-auto-lint); Cline has no built-in linter runner — it only runs commands you explicitly ask it to run.
- Warning: Cline requires user approval for each terminal command by default (unless auto-approve or YOLO mode is on); aider runs test and lint commands without per-invocation approval.
Both tools are BYOK-first with no bundled model subscription. To move from aider to Cline: open Cline extension settings (or ~/.cline config) and add your API keys for each provider you used in aider (Anthropic, OpenAI, DeepSeek, OpenRouter, etc.). Cline supports the same provider set. If you used aider with a local Ollama model, select Ollama as the provider in Cline and point it at the same base URL. To move the other direction (Cline to aider): export the same keys as environment variables or pass them via `--api-key` flags; select the model with `--model <provider>/<model-name>` or switch mid-session with `/model`. Aider's `--model` flag accepts any OpenAI-compatible endpoint, so custom Ollama/LM Studio URLs set in Cline config translate directly.
- Warning: Cline supports per-mode model selection (different model for Plan vs Act); aider has no equivalent — it uses the same model throughout a session (or architect mode with a separate editor model).
- Warning: Cline's managed 'Cline Provider' account gives free model access via OAuth sign-in; aider has no managed provider path — you must supply your own API key or use a free-tier OpenRouter/Gemini model.
- Warning: Aider stores API keys in environment variables or .aider.conf.yml; Cline stores them in IDE extension settings or ~/.cline config — keys are not auto-imported, so you must re-enter them.
Both tools can coordinate changes across multiple files in a single AI session. In aider, you add the files you want edited to the chat context with `/add file1.py file2.ts` (or pass them as CLI args), then describe the change — aider proposes diffs spanning all in-context files and applies them atomically. In Cline, use Plan mode first: describe the task and let Cline read the relevant files and outline the changes it plans to make; review the plan, then switch to Act mode to let Cline execute edits across files and run commands. To migrate a workflow from aider to Cline: replace your `/add` file list with @-mention references to the same files in the Cline chat box, then use Plan mode to preview the intended changes before committing to Act. To migrate from Cline to aider: identify the files Cline's plan targets, add them via `/add`, and run the same prompt — aider will apply diffs across all of them in one response.
- Warning: Aider requires you to explicitly add files to the context before editing them; Cline can discover and open files autonomously in Act mode, so the workflow is less file-list-driven but less predictable about scope.
- Warning: Aider applies all edits atomically in one diff block; Cline executes edits sequentially tool-call by tool-call, meaning partial completion is possible if you reject a mid-task edit.
- Warning: Aider's edit formats (diff, udiff, whole) determine how changes are represented; Cline writes files directly without an intermediate diff format, so there is no equivalent format switch.