Continue vs GitHub Copilot

A side-by-side comparison of Continue and GitHub Copilot — pricing, free tiers, and who each tool is genuinely best for.

	Continue	GitHub Copilot
Tagline	Open-source AI coding assistant for VS Code and JetBrains	AI pair programmer that autocompletes code and chats inside your editor
Category	AI Coding	AI Coding
Pricing	Free and open-source (self-hosted with your own API keys); hosted plans reportedly from ~$10/mo — check continue.dev	Free tier with limited completions; Pro from ~$10/user/mo; Business ~$19/user/mo; Enterprise ~$39/user/mo
Free tier
Best for	Developers who want a fully open-source, self-hosted AI assistant with control over which models and data leave their machine.	Developers and teams already living in GitHub and mainstream IDEs who want trusted inline completions plus chat.
Not for	Developers who prefer a fully managed, no-configuration coding assistant out of the box.	Teams wanting a fully agentic, repo-rewriting IDE rather than an assistant layered onto their existing editor.
Use cases	Bring-your-own-model AI chat Inline autocomplete with local LLMs Codebase-aware Q&A Custom AI workflows	Inline code completion Code explanation and chat Writing unit tests Refactoring functions Generating boilerplate
	Visit Continue	Visit GitHub Copilot

Choose it if: Developers who want a fully open-source, self-hosted AI assistant with control over which models and data leave their machine.

Choose it if: Developers and teams already living in GitHub and mainstream IDEs who want trusted inline completions plus chat.