Search for a Clash tutorial and you get Clash, Clash Premium, Clash Meta, mihomo, Clash Verge, Clash Verge Rev and FlClash all in one page of results. These names do not sit on the same layer, and mixing up guides written for different ones is how people end up with config that silently does nothing. Here is the family tree.

Core and client are two layers

The core is the program doing the work: it parses the config, opens connections, matches rules and forwards packets. The client is the graphical shell around it: subscriptions, latency numbers, toggles. Every switch you flip in the UI ends up as an instruction to the core.

Two consequences. Swapping clients does not mean rewriting your config — the same subscription behaves the same way under a different UI. And when something like "my rule is ignored" or "this protocol is unsupported" comes up, the answer is almost always in the core, not the interface.

The settings page usually shows the core version, something like mihomo v1.19.x. Include it when you ask for help; it saves half the back and forth.

Sponsored Where does the subscription link come from? Our partner provider gives you 1 GB of high-speed Hong Kong data at signup — import it in one click. Get high-speed nodes

The core branch: from Clash to mihomo

Comparison showing Clash for Windows discontinued next to the actively maintained Clash Verge Rev
What stopped is the client and the old core — the config format carried over

The original Clash was written by Dreamacro and its repository was archived in November 2023. Clash Premium, the closed-source build that added TUN and Script support, stopped at the same point.

The community fork Clash.Meta picked up maintenance and was later renamed mihomo. That is the core almost every current client ships. It reads the original Clash config format and adds newer protocols such as Hysteria2, TUIC and VLESS Reality, plus a much more complete DNS and rule-provider implementation.

Compatibility only runs one way: an old Clash config works on mihomo, but not the reverse. Once your subscription uses a mihomo-only protocol, going back to the old core is no longer an option.

The client branch: maintained and abandoned

  • Clash Verge Rev: desktop across all three platforms, the most complete feature set, and the default assumption in every guide on this site. Note the Rev suffix — it is the community continuation after the original Clash Verge stopped.
  • FlClash: cross-platform, covering Android as well as desktop, with the same interface everywhere. Which one to pick is covered in FlClash versus Clash Verge.
  • Clash for Windows: closed source, discontinued in 2023, no more security fixes. Migration path in the moving guide.
  • ClashX: the long-standing macOS client, also no longer maintained.

Why any of this matters

  1. Check the date and the core before following a tutorial. Snippets for Script or fake-ip written before 2023 may no longer be correct.
  2. When a provider says "Clash supported", they now almost always mean a mihomo-format subscription. An old-format one will simply be missing the newer nodes.
  3. Discontinued software still runs, but it gets no security fixes and no new protocols. Fine as a fallback, not a good daily driver.

To see which layer each field in your subscription belongs to, continue with the config file structure explained.