📖 The AI Tool Bible

Aider vs Continue

A side-by-side look at pricing, capabilities, pros, cons, and our editorial scores.

 
Aider
Coding
Continue
Coding
TaglineTerminal-based AI pair programmer that writes commits.Open-source, self-hostable VS Code/JetBrains AI assistant.
CategoryCodingCoding
PricingFree· Free / open-source; you pay the underlying LLM API costsFree· Free / open-source; you pay model costs
ModelBYO (Claude / GPT-4 / Gemini / DeepSeek)BYO (any OpenAI-compatible API + Ollama for local)
Editorial score8.4 / 107.9 / 10
Use cases
CLIgit workflowopen-source
self-hostedopen sourceBYO model
Pros
  • Free and open source
  • Writes proper commits
  • Composes well with shell workflows
  • BYO model
  • Free and open source
  • Works with local models via Ollama
  • No data leaves your machine if local
  • BYO model flexibility
Cons
  • No IDE UI
  • Needs BYO API key
  • Less polished than Cursor/Copilot
  • Setup is fiddly
Websiteaider.chatcontinue.dev
Pick Aider if
  • ✅ Free and open source
  • ✅ Writes proper commits
  • ✅ Composes well with shell workflows
  • ✅ BYO model
Pick Continue if
  • ✅ Free and open source
  • ✅ Works with local models via Ollama
  • ✅ No data leaves your machine if local
  • ✅ BYO model flexibility
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