📖 The AI Tool Bible

Continue vs Cursor

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

 
Continue
Coding
Cursor
Coding
TaglineOpen-source, self-hostable VS Code/JetBrains AI assistant.AI-first VS Code fork — chat, edit, and agentic coding in one IDE.
CategoryCodingCoding
PricingFreeFreemium· Free hobby; Pro $20/mo
Model—Claude / GPT-4o (configurable)
Editorial score7.9 / 109.5 / 10
Use cases
self-hostedopen sourceBYO model
codingrefactorsagentic editsIDE
Pros
  • Free and open source
  • Works with local models via Ollama
  • No data leaves your machine if local
  • Best-in-class multi-file edits
  • Choice of underlying models
  • Composer agent is genuinely useful
Cons
  • Less polished than Cursor/Copilot
  • Setup is fiddly
  • Heavier than vanilla VS Code
  • Pricing creeping up
  • Some extensions lag VS Code
Websitecontinue.devcursor.com
Pick Continue if
  • ✅ Free and open source
  • ✅ Works with local models via Ollama
  • ✅ No data leaves your machine if local
Pick Cursor if
  • ✅ Best-in-class multi-file edits
  • ✅ Choice of underlying models
  • ✅ Composer agent is genuinely useful
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