Aider vs Continue
A side-by-side comparison of Aider and Continue, two IDE tools, drawn from Ignaite's continuously-verified listings.
Compared from listings verified as of
At a glance
| Attribute | Aider | Continue |
|---|---|---|
| Category | IDE | IDE |
| Pricing (differs) | BYO KEY | FREEMIUM |
| License (differs) | Open source | Open core |
| Deployment | Local | Local |
| Platforms (differs) | macOS, Windows, Linux, CLI | VS Code extension, CLI, macOS, Windows, Linux |
| Model support (differs) | BYO key / model | Multi-model |
| Vendor (differs) | Paul Gauthier | Continue Dev |
The honest brief
Aider
CLI-only and model-agnostic: auto-commits every AI edit as its own git commit, so changes are trivially revertable.
- Fully open-source, BYO-key
- Auto-commits each edit to git
- Works with any model incl. local
- Strong on its own Polyglot benchmark
- No editor lock-in — pure terminal
- No GUI — terminal comfort required
- You pay model API costs yourself
- Less hand-holding than IDE agents
- Setup/config heavier than hosted tools
Continue
Runs fully local via Ollama with your own keys, so code never leaves your machine — unlike cloud-bound rivals like Cursor or Copilot.
- Apache-2.0 open source
- VS Code, JetBrains, and CLI
- Any model provider, your own keys
- Chat, autocomplete, and agent modes
- More setup than turnkey tools
- Quality depends on chosen model
- Less polished than Cursor