Cline rules vs .cursorrules
Every comparison page on the web is a capability table someone wrote from the vendor docs in an afternoon. None of them can tell you how many real repositories ship each file, how long the median one runs, or how often two of them turn up in the same project. Those answers need a corpus, and RuleStack counts one every night.
| Format | Cline rules 2026-08-01 | .cursorrules 2026-08-02 |
|---|---|---|
| Asserted — what the docs say it can express | ||
| File | .clinerules | .cursorrules |
| Status | vendor | deprecated |
| Cross-tool | No | No |
| Tools that read it |
|
|
| Frontmatter | No | No |
| Glob targeting | No | No |
| Imports other files | No | No |
| Nested / per-directory | No | No |
| Multiple files | Yes | No |
| User-level scope | Yes | No |
| When it applies | Always in scope. Either a single .clinerules file or a .clinerules/ directory whose markdown files are all loaded. | Always in scope, single file at the repo root. |
| Size limits | None | None |
| Measured — counted from real repositories on 2026-08-03 | ||
| Repositories carrying it | 79 | 27 |
| Share of indexed repos | 11.4% | 3.9% |
| Files indexed | 305 | 308 |
| Median length (words) | 262 | 365 |
| 90th percentile length | 1,412 | 1,104 |
| Files naming commands | 34.1% | 13.6% |
| Files containing code | 33.1% | 25.0% |
| Median quality score | 54 | 41 |
| Median repository stars | 1 | 26 |
How often they turn up together
A capability table cannot answer this at all. Of the repositories carrying the first format, this is the share that also carry the second — counted, both directions, on 2026-08-03.
.cursorrules + Cline rules
2026-08-033
repositories carry both. That is 11.1% of everything with .cursorrules, and 3.8% of everything with Cline rules.
What each one is for
Cline rules
2026-08-01A single file or a folder of files, all always-on. The folder form is the simplest way any format here lets you split rules into topics without also learning an activation model.
Strengths
- Directory form splits rules by topic with zero configuration
- Toggleable rule sets for switching context between tasks
Weaknesses
- Cline-only
- Everything is always-on — no targeting, so the folder form costs context
.cursorrules
2026-08-02Cursor's original single-file format, superseded by .cursor/rules/*.mdc. Tracked here precisely because it is dead: how much of the ecosystem is still shipping a deprecated file is a measurable answer, and a large share of the "best cursor rules" pages on the web still teach this format.
Strengths
- One file, nothing to configure
Weaknesses
- Deprecated — do not start here
- No targeting, no composition, no metadata
