Continue vs Pieces
A side-by-side comparison of capabilities, autonomy, integrations, and pricing to help you choose.
Short answer: choose Continue if you want open-source ai code assistant and agent for vs code and jetbrains (Supervised agent, freemium); choose Pieces if you want on-device ai long-term memory and copilot for developers (Copilot, freemium).
| Continue | Pieces | |
|---|---|---|
| What it is | Open-source AI code assistant and agent for VS Code and JetBrains | On-device AI long-term memory and copilot for developers |
| Type | agent | product-with-agents |
| Autonomy | Supervised agent | Copilot |
| Pricing | freemium · Free (open source); Hub from $10/mo (reported) | freemium · Free for individuals; Teams plan contact for pricing |
| Best for | developers, mid-market, enterprise | developers, smb, mid-market |
| Deployment | self-hosted, saas | self-hosted, saas |
| Modalities | text, code | text, code |
| Models | model-agnostic | model-agnostic, gpt, claude, gemini, llama, open-source |
| Protocols | mcp, function-calling, rest-api | mcp |
| Integrations | VS Code, JetBrains, Anthropic, OpenAI, Google Gemini, Ollama | VS Code, JetBrains IDEs, Chrome, Cursor, Claude Desktop, GitHub Copilot |
| Capabilities | 4 documented | 5 documented |
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
Pieces
- +Local, on-device processing positioned as air-gapped and privacy-first (encrypted, with PII and API-key filtering per the vendor)
- +Cross-tool memory that spans IDEs, browsers, terminals, and chat apps, not just one editor
- +Works offline with local models and is model-agnostic (local Llama, plus GPT, Claude, Gemini)
- -Memory only captures while the app is running and is capped at a rolling ~9-month window
- -Copilot assists and recalls; it does not take autonomous actions on your behalf
Which should you choose?
Continue is open-source ai code assistant and agent for vs code and jetbrains, best for developers, mid-market, enterprise. Pieces is on-device ai long-term memory and copilot for developers, best for developers, smb, mid-market. The right choice depends on the autonomy level you want, your existing integrations, and your budget, all compared above.
This comparison is generated from the sourced Continue and Pieces profiles. Open either profile to review its evidence and last-reviewed date.