Cline vs Codex
Both are Grade A and 1.7 points apart, so choose on what you weigh most. Cline leads on supply-chain integrity and rests on broader evidence.
Autonomous coding agent as an SDK, IDE extension, or CLI assistant.
Choose Cline if supply-chain integrity matters most.
- +4.6Safety / Integrity: 90% of recent commits signed, against 0%
- A vs BEvidence coverage: 4 of 5 independent signal types, against 3
Lightweight coding agent that runs in your terminal
Codex doesn't lead on any scored dimension in this pair.
Where they differ
3 dimensions identical: Identity 18.0 · Maintenance 19.9 · Adoption 20.0 · Full evidence table
An independent, evidence-based trust comparison of Cline and Codex, two Coding Agents projects in the HVTracker registry. Scores come from public, checkable signals — supply-chain provenance, OSSF Scorecard, maintenance, and adoption — not popularity.
Full evidence
| Signal | Clinecline/cline | Codexopenai/codex |
|---|---|---|
| HVTrust score | 91.7 | 90.0 |
| Evidence grade | A | A |
| Coverage grade | A | B |
| Overall rank | #10 | #21 |
| Rank in Coding Agents | #1 | #2 |
| GitHub stars | 69.5k | 127.0k |
| Last updated | 1d ago | 1d ago |
| Build provenance | Yes | Yes |
| OSSF Scorecard | 6.1 / 10 | 6.0 / 10 |
| License | Apache-2.0 | Apache-2.0 |
| Downloads | 5.5M/wk | 24.3M/wk |
| Trust dimensions (points earned) | ||
| Safety / integrity / 25 | 19.6 | 15.0 |
| Identity & provenance / 18 | 18.0 | 18.0 |
| Transparency / 17 | 13.7 | 13.6 |
| Maintenance / 20 | 19.9 | 19.9 |
| Adoption / 20 | 20.0 | 20.0 |
| Runtime capability surface (full matrix) | ||
| MCP server | Declared | Implemented |
| External providers | — | 1 — OpenAI |
| Requires API keys | Yes | No |
| Plugin surface | plugins | extensions |
| Provenance drift | Match | Match |
How to read this: HVTrust (0–100) weighs supply-chain signals (provenance, OSSF Scorecard, signed commits, open license) alongside real-world adoption, scaled by an evidence-confidence factor. Grade bands: A ≥ 80, B ≥ 65, C ≥ 50, D < 50. Signals refresh daily. Full methodology v4.3 →