Cline vs Zed Pricing | Costbench
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Team size
25 seats

Cline vs Zed

AI Coding Assistants pricing comparison · 2026

Cline has a free plan and quote-based paid plans, while Zed has a free plan, then from $10/mo.

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2 products · AI Coding Assistants
Side-by-side · live
Cline
Cline (formerly Claude Dev) is an autonomous AI coding assistant designed as a VS Code and
verified 7d ago
$240 $360
View pricing →
Z
Zed
Zed pricing starts at $0/month on the Personal plan, which includes 50 Zed-hosted AI promp
verified 3d ago
$240 $360
View pricing →
Estimated license cost
at 25 seats
List price × seats. Click a tier below to lock it.
Pricing model unknown
Pricing model unknown
no public list price found
Business
$360/yr
year 1 license · flat plan price
What buyers actually pay
median, annual
Vendr deal-flow data. The real benchmark, not list price.
Median annual
$240/yr
Vendr · n=14
No Vendr data
—
Not in Vendr's deal flow
REF · 01

Sources & confidence

Every dollar amount and contract clause below traces back to a sourced fact. We don't manufacture composite scores.

Where this data comes from
Vendr · TrustRadius · Reddit · BBB · official docs
Sources 4 sourced facts
1 hidden-cost · 1 contract · Vendr median · 1 review platform
Last verified 1w ago
Confidence Medium confidence
Sources 16 sourced facts
16 hidden-cost
Last verified 3d ago
Confidence Limited confidence
REF · 02

Plans at a glance

Every tier per product. Lock one to drive the cost row above and reveal a tier-specific outbound CTA.

Tier ladder
Click a tier to lock the cost row to it. Locking surfaces a tier-specific Visit CTA.
REF · 03

Hidden costs

Each cost is severity-ranked, with the dollar range quoted from its source (Vendr, Reddit, TrustRadius, BBB, official docs) — never our estimate.

Beyond the sticker
Severity-ranked, sourced
1 documented
  • API Token Costs Without Caching
    5-30% of license costs
    1 source
5 documented
  • Token-based Billing
    $5 monthly token credit, then API list price plus 10%
    1 source
  • Expensive Service Provisioning
    1 source
  • Vendor Lock-in
    1 source
  • Training and Enablement
    $10,000 annually
    1 source
  • Administrative Overhead
    1 source
REF · 05

What users say

Aggregated, with sample sizes. We use whichever review platform has data.

User reviews
TrustRadius · Trustpilot · G2
Trustpilot
1out of 5 (1)
Watch out
Tool creates errors that consume additional API credits to fix
No public ratings yet
Best for
Individual developers who want a best-in-class code editor without hosted AI, or who prefer to bring their own API keys
Decide
Get a quote from each vendor
Each link opens the vendor's pricing page in a new tab.
License cost is computed from publicly listed plans (real math, list price × seats). Median annual cost is from Vendr's deal flow when available — see source badges. Hidden costs and contract terms each cite their own sources. We do not invent composite scores.
AI Coding Assistants

Cline

Free plan; paid plans by quote
2 plans · Free tier
Full pricing breakdown →
VS
AI Coding Assistants

Zed

Free plan; paid from $10
/mo
3 plans · Free tier
Full pricing breakdown →

Plan-by-Plan Pricing

Plan Cline Zed
Open Source Free /month Free /month
Enterprise Custom $10 /month
Business — $30 /user/month

Cost at Scale

Total cost of ownership — licenses, implementation, and hidden costs included.

Cline

2 scenarios
$0
Hobby Developer
for Cline Open Source, plus modest pay-as-you-go API costs
$0
Professional Developer
for Cline Open Source, plus API costs that scale with usage

Zed

3 scenarios
$0/month
Solo Developer – Free Plan with BYOK
for Zed + variable API costs ($5-$30/month typical)
$10/month
Solo Developer – Pro Plan
$30/user/month
Small Team – Business Plan

Contract Terms

Term Cline Zed
Auto-renewal — —
Cancellation — —
Minimum commitment — —
Price escalation 5-30% of license costs —

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