Aider vs Continue
A side-by-side comparison of Aider and Continue — pricing, free tiers, and who each tool is genuinely best for.
| Tagline | Open-source AI pair programmer in your terminal | Open-source AI coding assistant for VS Code and JetBrains |
| Category | AI Coding | AI Coding |
| Pricing | Free and open-source; you pay only underlying LLM API costs — light use ~$5-20/mo, heavy use can reach $50-200+/mo | Free and open-source (self-hosted with your own API keys); hosted plans reportedly from ~$10/mo — check continue.dev |
| Free tier | ||
| Best for | Terminal-native developers who want maximum model flexibility and full open-source transparency. | Developers who want a fully open-source, self-hosted AI assistant with control over which models and data leave their machine. |
| Not for | Developers who prefer a GUI or managed IDE experience over a CLI workflow. | Developers who prefer a fully managed, no-configuration coding assistant out of the box. |
| Use cases | Multi-file refactoring from a prompt Bug fixes via natural language Adding features to existing codebases Automated git commits | Bring-your-own-model AI chat Inline autocomplete with local LLMs Codebase-aware Q&A Custom AI workflows |
| Visit Aider | Visit Continue |