Claude Code vs Continue
A side-by-side comparison of Claude Code and Continue — pricing, free tiers, and who each tool is genuinely best for.
| Tagline | Anthropic's agentic coding tool that lives in your terminal | Open-source AI coding assistant for VS Code and JetBrains |
| Category | AI Coding | AI Coding |
| Pricing | Included in Claude Pro/Max consumer plans (from ~$20/mo); API usage-based billing for pay-as-you-go | Free and open-source (self-hosted with your own API keys); hosted plans reportedly from ~$10/mo — check continue.dev |
| Free tier | ||
| Best for | Engineers who want a terminal-native, fully agentic coding assistant that can drive large multi-step changes. | Developers who want a fully open-source, self-hosted AI assistant with control over which models and data leave their machine. |
| Not for | Beginners who prefer a graphical IDE experience over a command-line agent workflow. | Developers who prefer a fully managed, no-configuration coding assistant out of the box. |
| Use cases | Terminal-based agentic coding Large multi-file changes Running and fixing tests Codebase exploration Automating dev workflows | Bring-your-own-model AI chat Inline autocomplete with local LLMs Codebase-aware Q&A Custom AI workflows |
| Visit Claude Code | Visit Continue |
Claude Code
Choose it if: Engineers who want a terminal-native, fully agentic coding assistant that can drive large multi-step changes.
Continue
Choose it if: Developers who want a fully open-source, self-hosted AI assistant with control over which models and data leave their machine.