Continue Review: Features, Pricing and Who It Suits Best
Continue is a free, open-source coding assistant for VS Code and JetBrains. This continue review covers its features, the Cursor deal, and who should use it.
By Galactic News Editorial · Published 2026-11-09T01:34:26+00:00 · Updated 2026-11-09T01:34:26+00:00
Continue Review: Features, Pricing and Who It Suits Best
Continue is an open-source coding assistant that lives inside your editor. It adds chat, inline edits, tab completions, and an agent mode to VS Code and JetBrains. Its defining feature is model freedom. You bring your own API keys, or run local models through Ollama. This continue review covers what Continue does, what it costs now, and who should still use it. One fact shapes everything else. Continue was acquired by Cursor in June 2026. The hosted product was discontinued. The open-source codebase remains free under the Apache 2.0 license. Read the full picture before you install it.
What Continue Is
Continue is an extension, not a separate editor. It sits inside VS Code or a JetBrains IDE. You keep your editor, your theme, and your keybindings. Continue adds a chat sidebar, inline code editing, and tab completions. It does not replace your editor the way a dedicated AI editor does. That is the point. Developers who like their setup can add coding assistance without moving house.
The project supports more than 30 model providers. You can connect OpenAI, Anthropic, Google Gemini, Ollama, LM Studio, and any OpenAI-compatible endpoint. You can assign different models to different tasks. Use a fast local model for autocomplete. Use a stronger cloud model for chat. Every setting lives in a JSON config file. Teams can commit that file to a repository so everyone shares the same setup.
Continue Review: Key Features
Chat, Plan, and Agent modes
Continue offers three ways to work. Chat answers questions about your code. Plan breaks a change into steps before you run it. Agent mode carries out multi-step tasks across files. The agent mode arrived with the 2026 releases. It is the feature that moved Continue from a chat panel toward a real coding agent.
Tab completions and inline edits
Continue suggests code as you type. You can also highlight code and ask for a change in place. The extension shows a diff before it applies anything. You stay in control of every edit. That matters for production code. Nothing lands in your files without your approval.
Codebase context with @codebase
Type @codebase in chat and Continue searches your whole project. It uses embeddings to find relevant files, even when you do not know their names. It can also pull in context from docs, Git diffs, and terminal output. Good context is what separates a useful assistant from a guessing machine. This is one of Continue's strongest features.
Custom agents and integrations
Continue lets you build custom agents and share them as code. You can encode team standards and reusable workflows. It also connects to tools such as Slack, Sentry, and Snyk. Those integrations extend agents across the development lifecycle, from error reports to code review.
Local models and privacy
Continue works with local models through Ollama or LM Studio. Your code never leaves your machine if you run a local model. That is the main reason privacy-focused developers choose it. No other mainstream coding assistant offers the same combination of local models and a polished IDE experience.
Continue Review: Pricing and What It Costs Now
Here is where this continue review must be careful. Continue's pricing changed fundamentally in 2026. The hosted product is gone. There is no paid plan to buy.
Continue was acquired by Cursor in June 2026 in what was reported as an acqui-hire. The hosted Continue product was shut down. Recurring billing was disabled. Existing users were given until July 15, 2026 to export their data. The main GitHub repository is now read-only. The Continue Hub pricing page in the docs is no longer live. The continue.dev site shows an acquisition notice: "Continue has joined Cursor" and "our open-source codebase remains freely available as a foundation for others."
What does that mean for cost? The extension itself is free. It is open source under the Apache 2.0 license. Your only cost is the model behind it. Bring your own API key and you pay your provider's rates. Run a local model through Ollama and you pay nothing for inference. Older pricing pages listed a Starter plan at $3 per million tokens and a Team plan at $20 per seat per month. Those plans no longer exist. Do not budget from them.
| Option | Cost | What you pay for |
|---|---|---|
| Continue extension | $0 | Nothing; open source, Apache 2.0 |
| Local model via Ollama | $0 | Your own hardware and electricity |
| Cloud model, own API key | Varies | Your provider's token rates |
| Continue Hub hosted plans | Unavailable | Discontinued after the Cursor acquisition |
Continue vs Cursor, Copilot, and Cline
Cursor is the company that acquired Continue. It is a full AI code editor. If you want an editor built around AI from the ground up, Cursor is the direct successor to Continue's hosted ambitions. Continue's own team joined Cursor. That tells you where the momentum went.
GitHub Copilot is the safe corporate choice. It integrates with VS Code, GitHub, and enterprise controls. It costs a flat monthly fee. It does not offer local models. It does not offer Continue's level of model routing.
Cline is the closest open-source rival. It is also an Apache 2.0 project. It is more agent-focused than Continue. It runs multi-step tasks with terminal access. It has more VS Code installs. If you want maximum autonomy, Cline is the stronger pick. If you want a lighter assistant that stays inside your editor, Continue still fits.
The honest comparison is this. Continue's edge was model freedom plus a free, open codebase. That edge still exists in the code. What is gone is the hosted service, the support, and the future roadmap. Cline and Cursor now carry the momentum that Continue once had.
Who Continue Suits Best
Continue still suits developers who want a free, local-first coding assistant. You run Ollama on your own machine. You keep your code private. You configure models per task. You like your current editor and do not want to switch. You are comfortable with a project that has no commercial support behind it.
It suits teams that want config-as-code. Commit a config file and every developer inherits the same models, prompts, and rules. It suits students and hobbyists. The only cost is an API key or a local model.
Continue does not suit teams that need vendor support. There is no support desk, no SLA, and no hosted dashboard. It does not suit buyers who need a compliance story. A read-only repository is not a product roadmap. It does not suit developers who want the newest agent features. That work now happens at Cursor and Cline.
How to Start with Continue
Install the extension from the VS Code Marketplace or Open VSX. Search for "Continue". Open the sidebar and add a model. For a free start, install Ollama and pull a local model. This continue review recommends a local model first, because it costs nothing and keeps your code private. Point Continue at the Ollama endpoint. Test chat, completions, and @codebase on a small project first. If you use a cloud model, add your API key and watch your provider's usage dashboard. Set a spending limit at your provider before you run agent mode on a large task.
Bottom Line
This continue review ends with a split verdict. As a tool, Continue remains good. It is free, open source, model-agnostic, and local-friendly. As a product, it is finished. The hosted service is gone, the repository is read-only, and the team now works at Cursor. Use Continue if you want a free coding assistant you control yourself. Choose Cursor or Cline if you want active development and support. Either way, verify the current state on continue.dev before you commit a team to it.