Continue vs Cursor
A side-by-side comparison of Continue and Cursor, two IDE tools, drawn from Ignaite's continuously-verified listings.
Compared from listings verified as of
At a glance
| Attribute | Continue | Cursor |
|---|---|---|
| Category | IDE | IDE |
| Pricing | FREEMIUM | FREEMIUM |
| License (differs) | Open core | Proprietary |
| Deployment | Local | Local |
| Platforms (differs) | VS Code extension, CLI, macOS, Windows, Linux | macOS, Windows, Linux |
| Model support | Multi-model | Multi-model |
| Vendor (differs) | Continue Dev | Anysphere |
The honest brief
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
Cursor
Pioneered agentic, multi-file editing in a familiar VS Code fork — frontier models bundled, no API key wrangling.
- Inherits the VS Code extension ecosystem
- Frontier models bundled in one plan
- Strong multi-file agent + tab completion
- BYO key supported
- Closed source (the editor itself)
- Heavier on usage limits at higher tiers
- No first-party Linux/mobile parity gaps