GitHub Copilot vs Cline: what developers actually say
Based on 694 opinions on Hacker News from developers who discussed these two, most of them first-hand users.
Cline leads on approval at 73% from 35 opinions versus 42% from 659 for Copilot, and on cost (6 positive, 1 negative) and usage limits (4 positive, 0 negative). That Cline sample covers only 28 authors, so the lead is a signal rather than a settled result. Copilot has far more evidence with 501 firsthand opinions, and it holds the only explicit head-to-head win at 1 to 0, but its negatives outnumber positives on code quality (93 negative, 38 positive), reliability (54 negative, 14 positive), and cost (80 negative, 60 positive). Choose Copilot for the larger evidence base and that one confirmed preference, and choose Cline when approval, cost, and usage limits matter more than sample size.
When developers explicitly said they prefer one or switched: 1 picked GitHub Copilot, 0 picked Cline.
Choose GitHub Copilot if
- Want the largest HN evidence base
- Need 501 firsthand opinions
- Value the only explicit head-to-head win
Choose Cline if
- Want a 73% approval rate
- Care about cost and usage limits
- Can weigh a 35-opinion sample
Where each one wins and loses
Why developers switched
Picked GitHub Copilot
Picked Cline
No explicit switches recorded.
Summaries are paraphrased. Each links to the original comment.