Continue

Continue is an open-source AI code assistant that integrates directly into VS Code and JetBrains IDEs, providing GitHub Copilot-like functionality powered by any LLM backend — local or remote. It offers tab autocomplete, chat with codebase context, inline code editing, and custom slash commands. For developers who want AI-assisted coding with the freedom to use local models like those served by Ollama, Continue is the most mature open-source Copilot alternative that works within your existing IDE.

Key Features

Tab autocomplete. Continue provides real-time code completions as you type, similar to GitHub Copilot. Point it at a local model optimized for code completion (such as Qwen2.5-Coder or DeepSeek Coder) running on Ollama for a fully private, offline autocomplete experience.

Chat with codebase context. The chat panel lets you ask questions about your code, request explanations, and generate new code. Continue can reference specific files, functions, or entire directories as context. Use @file, @folder, @codebase, and other context providers to ground the model’s responses in your actual code.

Inline editing. Highlight code in the editor and ask Continue to refactor, fix, optimize, or transform it. The model generates an inline diff that you can accept, reject, or modify. This keeps you in your editor flow without switching to a separate chat window.

Custom slash commands. Define reusable commands for common tasks like generating tests, writing documentation, reviewing code, or translating between languages. Slash commands can be shared across teams for consistent AI-assisted workflows.

Multi-provider flexibility. Connect to Ollama, LM Studio, llama-cpp-python, or any OpenAI-compatible API for local inference. Also supports OpenAI, Anthropic, Google, and other cloud providers. Mix providers — for example, use a small local model for autocomplete and a cloud model for complex chat tasks.

VS Code and JetBrains. Continue supports both VS Code (and VS Code forks like Cursor and VSCodium) and JetBrains IDEs (IntelliJ, PyCharm, WebStorm, etc.), covering the majority of professional development environments.

When to Use Continue

Choose Continue when you want AI coding assistance inside your IDE without sending code to external services. It is ideal for developers using local LLMs for privacy, teams that want a customizable Copilot alternative, and organizations that need to control which AI providers their developers use.

Ecosystem Role

Continue is the most widely adopted open-source IDE AI assistant. It relies on external backends like Ollama for local inference and integrates with the broader local AI stack. Compared to Tabby (which is self-hosted and team-focused), Continue is more individual-developer-oriented with broader IDE support. For terminal-based AI coding, Aider is the alternative.