Continue Review 2026

Continue is the open-source answer to the question "what if I don't want to give Microsoft or Cursor all my code and money?" It's an AI coding assistant that runs inside VS Code and JetBrains, but unlike Copilot or Cursor, you control everything: which model powers autocomplete, which model handles chat, where your code gets processed (cloud or local), and exactly how the assistant behaves. The configuration is a simple JSON file, and the model backend can be anything from Claude API to a local Llama running on Ollama to your company's private GPT-4o deployment.

The trade-off for this flexibility is polish. Continue's autocomplete isn't as fast or predictive as Cursor's — it feels more like a smart snippet tool than an AI that anticipates your next move. The chat interface is functional but lacks the deep integration of Cursor's inline Cmd+K or Claude Code's agentic capabilities. Setting up Continue requires explicit configuration: you need to know which models you want to use, obtain API keys, and define context rules. It rewards technical sophistication and punishes the "just make it work" expectation.

Continue's ideal user is the developer who has been burned by AI tool pricing changes or privacy concerns. If you invested in Cursor's workflow only to find your favorite model moved behind a higher pricing tier, or if your company's security team rejected GitHub Copilot, Continue gives you an escape hatch. You can start with Claude API today ($3 per million input tokens), switch to a self-hosted Llama next month, and never change your workflow. For teams building internal AI coding infrastructure, Continue provides the UI layer you'd otherwise have to build from scratch. It's not the best AI coding experience — Cursor and Claude Code are better out of the box — but it's the most resilient and customizable one.