Cline vs Neon — Pricing, Plans, and Verified Costs (2026)
Cline and Neon both start at Free on their entry tier.
How pricing works
These two tools don't price the same way, so the headline numbers below aren't directly comparable until you plug in your own volume.
- Cline (Per Usage) — Cline bills purely on usage. There is no fixed per-seat fee, so the monthly cost depends entirely on how much you consume.
- Neon (Per Usage) — Neon bills purely on usage — Free 100 CU-hr/mo + 0.5GB, then $0.106-$0.222/CU-hour + $0.35/GB-month. There is no fixed per-seat fee, so the monthly cost depends entirely on how much you consume.
Per-minute, per-credit and per-token rates exclude any downstream model, speech or telephony costs unless the vendor states otherwise.
Open-source autonomous coding agent that runs in VS Code as an extension. Cline itself is free — users bring their own LLM API key (Anthropic, OpenAI, Google, Groq, OpenRouter, local models via Ollama). Cost is entirely determined by underlying LLM token usage. Popular with developers who want an agent-first coding experience but prefer to pay direct LLM costs rather than a marked-up subscription.
Serverless Postgres, valued $2B private. Positioned as the alternative to AWS RDS for developers who want true scale-to-zero + database branching (like git branches for your data). Launch tier from $19/mo, then usage-based on compute + storage + egress. Free tier includes real production Postgres. Popular with modern JavaScript stacks (Next.js, Vercel, Cloudflare) and Series A-B startups. Acquired by Databricks in 2025 for $1B.
All plans compared
| Tier role | Plan | Cline monthly | Cline annual | Neon monthly | Neon annual |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Free / starter | Cline (extension) / Free | Free | Free | Free | Free |
| Teams | Teams / — | $20 | $20 | — | — |
| Enterprise | Enterprise | Custom | Custom | Custom | Custom |
Tier names differ across vendors. Rows are aligned by tier role, not name. Full tier structures on each tool's page.
What each is best for
Cline is worth it if… developers who already have LLM API access and want an autonomous coding agent without a subscription markup. The BYOK model is the differentiator — typical monthly cost is $5-50 in Claude Sonnet tokens depending on usage, which beats most $20-60/mo subscription tools if you're a light user.
Neon is worth it if… developers building serverless apps that want Postgres with scale-to-zero pricing — particularly if your workload is bursty and you don't want to pay for idle compute. 5GB storage; Launch is pure usage-based; Scale adds multi-AZ HA; Enterprise custom.
Bottom line: Similar positioning, closer to a preference call than a strategic one.
Choose Cline over Neon if…
Choose Cline if…
- You want to pay only for actual usage (per usage, a free entry tier).
- You match the profile Cline is built for: developers who already have LLM API access and want an autonomous coding agent without a subscription markup.
- You need a general-purpose developer & infrastructure option rather than a vertical-specific one.
Choose Neon if…
- You want to pay only for actual usage (per usage, a free entry tier).
- You match the profile Neon is built for: developers building serverless apps that want Postgres with scale-to-zero pricing — particularly if your workload is bursty and you don't want to pay for idle compute.
- You need a general-purpose developer & infrastructure option rather than a vertical-specific one.
At a glance
| Cline | Neon | |
|---|---|---|
| Free plan | No | Yes |
| Entry price | Free | Free |
| Enterprise available | Yes | Yes |
| Pricing model | Per Usage | Per Usage |
| Last verified | September 20, 2026 | September 15, 2026 |
| Full pricing | View full pricing | View full pricing |
Pricing last verified September 20, 2026. Tracked daily.