Aider vs Continue
A side-by-side comparison of capabilities, autonomy, integrations, and pricing to help you choose.
Short answer: choose Aider if you want open-source ai pair programming in your terminal, backed by git (Supervised agent, free); choose Continue if you want open-source ai code assistant and agent for vs code and jetbrains (Supervised agent, freemium).
| Aider | Continue | |
|---|---|---|
| What it is | Open-source AI pair programming in your terminal, backed by Git | Open-source AI code assistant and agent for VS Code and JetBrains |
| Type | agent | agent |
| Autonomy | Supervised agent | Supervised agent |
| Pricing | free · Free (open source; pay your own model costs) | freemium · Free (open source); Hub from $10/mo (reported) |
| Best for | developers | developers, mid-market, enterprise |
| Deployment | self-hosted | self-hosted, saas |
| Modalities | text, code | text, code |
| Models | model-agnostic | model-agnostic |
| Protocols | function-calling, rest-api | mcp, function-calling, rest-api |
| Integrations | Git, GitHub, OpenAI, Anthropic, Google Gemini, DeepSeek | VS Code, JetBrains, Anthropic, OpenAI, Google Gemini, Ollama |
| Capabilities | 4 documented | 4 documented |
Aider
- +Fully open source (Apache-2.0) and free; you only pay your chosen model provider
- +Git-native: every AI change is a reviewable, revertible commit
- +Model-agnostic with a repo map that scales to larger codebases
- -Terminal-only with no GUI or IDE-native experience for those who want one
- -Runs locally and edits real files, so a human must review every change
Continue
- +Open source and model-agnostic, including fully local models for private coding
- +Covers autocomplete, edit, chat, and agent in one configurable plugin
- +Continue Hub adds team rules, governance, and shareable assistant blocks
- -Acquired by Cursor in 2026 with the original repo reported read-only; standalone future is uncertain
- -Heavily configuration-driven, which adds setup overhead versus turnkey tools
Which should you choose?
Aider is open-source ai pair programming in your terminal, backed by git, best for developers. Continue is open-source ai code assistant and agent for vs code and jetbrains, best for developers, mid-market, enterprise. The right choice depends on the autonomy level you want, your existing integrations, and your budget, all compared above.