Continue vs Cursor: Which AI Agent Is Better?
An in-depth comparison of Continue and Cursor across output quality, autonomy, reliability, speed, value, and ease of use. Vote for your favorite.
An in-depth comparison of Continue and Cursor across output quality, autonomy, reliability, speed, value, and ease of use. Vote for your favorite.
Either way, you pay for the model calls. A median coding-agent day on our gateway is 95 requests and 8.6 million tokens. The table prices every step at one model’s rate.
Both run on Standard Compute, where each step goes to the cheapest model that can do it: routine steps go to efficient open models, hard ones to frontier models such as Claude Fable 5.1 or GPT-6 Astra.
| Model | Typical day | Busy day |
|---|---|---|
| Claude Opus 5.5 | $7.34 | $59.10 |
| Claude Sonnet 5.5 | $3.67 | $29.55 |
| GPT-6 Luna | $0.23 | $2.43 |
Fixed monthly plans from $19. Eligible new accounts can try $0.25 of compute first, no card. Trial terms
Pick a winner in each category. You can change your vote anytime.
ContinueCursorChoose Continue if you are developers who want full control over their AI coding assistant. Choose Cursor if you are developers who want the most polished AI-integrated editor experience.
In our editorial scoring, Cursor leads in 5 of six categories (output quality, autonomy, reliability, speed and ease of use), while Continue leads in 1 (value). On price, Continue runs free (byo api key), no longer maintained and is open source; Cursor runs free tier / $8–200/mo and is proprietary.
What it costs to run Continue or Cursor
Best API for Continue →
4 options compared, with prices and limits
Best API for Cursor →
4 options compared, with prices and limits
Standard Compute sends each step to the cheapest model that can do it, on providers we vet for price, uptime and speed. Plans start at $19 a month, and eligible new accounts can try $0.25 of compute with no card. Choose your agent below to connect.
See the trial and activation steps →
More on Cursor: How much does Cursor cost now? · Can I use Cursor with my own API key on a fixed monthly budget?
Continue is an open-source (Apache 2.0) AI coding assistant for VS Code and JetBrains IDEs, plus a CLI. It offers chat, autocomplete, and inline editing with full control over which models you use, including local models, cloud APIs, and custom context providers. It is no longer developed: the Continue team joined Cursor, the GitHub repo is read-only, and the last release (2.1.0 for VS Code) shipped in June 2026. The extension still installs and works, but expect no fixes for new models or editor versions.
Cursor is a fork of VS Code redesigned from the ground up for AI-powered development. It features tab completions, natural language code editing, codebase-wide chat, and multi-file editing. Its deep editor integration makes it one of the most polished AI coding tools available.
Continue and Cursor both run on Standard Compute
