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COUNTED 08:45 UTC4 READS FAILED
61 models ranked12 boards36 tools tracked, 7 not what they werecaptured 26 Sep 2026against 25 Sep 202618 rose · 13 fell · 72 held · 8 newadoption, not capability
COMPARISONS/AIDER VS CONTINUE

AiderVSContinue

Read from each vendor’s own pages last night, so it does not go stale the way a written comparison does.

AIDER
Free
CONTINUE
Not published as tiers
CHANGES ON EITHER
3
CAVEATS
1
CLI AGENT · IDE EXTENSIONREAD NIGHTLY FROM THE VENDORS’ OWN PAGESVERDICT DERIVED FROM THE ROWS BELOW
Contents
BEFORE YOU READ ON1 of the two is not what it was

CONTINUEACQUIRED SINCE 2 AUGUST 2026Continue was acquired by Cursor and is no longer independent. continue.dev now reads "Continue has joined Cursor · Continue was acquired by Cursor" and the pricing page is gone. The Apache-2.0 repository is still public and was still being pushed to on 2 August 2026. No announcement date is published, so the date here is when it was first observed.

THE VERDICTderived from the rows below, so it cannot say anything the table does not

On the prices each vendor publishes about itself, Aider starts at Free and Continue at Not published as tiers. Before that decides anything: Continue was acquired by Cursor and is no longer independent. (since 2 August 2026) Both take your own API key, so on either one the subscription and the model bill are separate decisions. Both are open source, so neither can withdraw the thing you have already installed. Every figure on this page was read from the two vendors' own pages in last night's run rather than written down once, which is the only reason it is still the current answer. ToolDrift sells neither and takes no referral fee on either.

SIDE BY SIDE9 asserted rows, 5 measured
COMPARED ONAIDERCONTINUE
ASSERTED · WHAT EACH VENDOR PUBLISHES ABOUT ITSELF
CategoryCLI agentIDE extension
VendorAider AIContinue
StatusActiveAcquired
How it chargesFreeHybrid
Entry priceFreeNot published as tiers
Default modelNone, you chooseNone, you choose
Your own keyYesYes
SourceOpen source · Apache-2.0Open source · Apache-2.0
PlansNo named tier on Aider AI's pricing page could be read with a price beside it.Continue publishes no pricing page for Continue since the Cursor acquisition, so there are no tiers to compare.
MEASURED · COUNTED ON THE LAST NIGHTLY RUN
Stars49.2K36.0K
Maintenance55/100100/100
Days since last push1261
Top model in itThinking Machines: Inkling (free) · Freenot measured
Its volume11B tokensnot measured
THE QUESTIONS3 answered from the rows above

Is Aider or Continue cheaper?

On the cheapest option each vendor publishes: Aider is Free and Continue is Not published as tiers. Treat both as an allowance rather than a bill, every tool in this category meters model usage on top of the plan, and which one costs more in practice depends on the models you drive and how hard. The tier prices are the part that can be checked from outside, so they are the part this page prints.

Can I use my own API key with Aider or Continue?

Aider: yes. Continue: yes. It is the row that decides whether the subscription price is most of what you pay or a fraction of it: a tool that takes your own key charges for the software, and one that does not is reselling inference with a margin you cannot see.

Are Aider and Continue still maintained?

Active and Acquired as of last night's read. Aider's repository was last pushed 126 days ago and it scores 55/100 on maintenance; Continue's repository was last pushed 1 day ago and it scores 100/100 on maintenance. One caution: Continue was acquired by Cursor and is no longer independent. (since 2 August 2026) This is the question a written comparison cannot answer, because it was true on the day it was published and nobody went back.