Continue vs GitHub Copilot

Continue and GitHub Copilot both provide AI coding assistance in your IDE, but Continue takes an open-source, model-agnostic approach while Copilot offers a polished proprietary experience.

Overview

Continue is an open-source AI code assistant for VS Code and JetBrains. It supports any LLM provider — OpenAI, Anthropic, Google, local models via Ollama — and offers tab completions, chat, and inline editing. It is fully customizable through configuration files. GitHub Copilot provides AI completions, chat, and GitHub integration. It is the most widely adopted AI coding tool, powered by OpenAI models.

Key Differences

Model flexibility: Continue works with any LLM — use Claude for chat, GPT-4 for completions, and a local model for privacy-sensitive code. Copilot is locked to OpenAI models. Open source: Continue is fully open-source (Apache 2.0). You can inspect, modify, and self-host it. Copilot is proprietary. Customization: Continue is deeply configurable — you can customize prompts, context providers, slash commands, and model parameters through a JSON config file. Copilot offers limited configuration. Cost model: Continue lets you bring your own API keys, giving you full control over costs. You can even use free local models. Copilot has a fixed monthly subscription. Context providers: Continue has a plugin system for custom context — pull from Jira, documentation sites, databases, or any custom source. Copilot's context is limited to your code and GitHub. Completion quality: Copilot's completions are generally smoother and more reliable out of the box. Continue's completion quality depends on your model choice and configuration. Setup effort: Copilot works immediately after installation. Continue requires configuring API keys and choosing models.

Pricing

Continue is free and open-source; you pay for API usage. Copilot Individual is $10/month, Business is $19/month per user.

Verdict

Choose Continue if you want full control over your AI coding setup — model choice, customization, and open-source transparency. Choose Copilot if you want a polished, zero-configuration AI assistant that works great out of the box.