Continue vs Qwen Code: Which AI Agent Is Better?
An in-depth comparison of Continue and Qwen Code across output quality, autonomy, reliability, speed, value, and ease of use. Vote for your favorite.
An in-depth comparison of Continue and Qwen Code 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.
ContinueQwen CodeChoose Continue if you are developers who want full control over their AI coding assistant. Choose Qwen Code if you are developers who want a free, Claude Code-style terminal agent that runs Qwen models next to any other provider.
In our editorial scoring, Qwen Code leads in 4 of six categories (output quality, autonomy, reliability and speed), while Continue leads in 2 (value and ease of use). On price, Continue runs free (byo api key), no longer maintained and is open source; Qwen Code runs free (apache 2.0), bring your own provider and is open source.
What it costs to run Continue or Qwen Code
Best API for Continue →
4 options compared, with prices and limits
Best API for Qwen Code →
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.
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.
Qwen Code is Alibaba's Qwen team's open-source coding agent. It was originally based on Gemini CLI v0.8.2, stopped syncing with upstream at v0.1 and has been developed on its own since, with frequent releases (v0.25.2 on October 15, 2026). It ships subagents, agent teams, skills, hooks, MCP, plan mode, LSP and git worktrees, plus VS Code, JetBrains and Zed plugins, a desktop app and Telegram, DingTalk, WeChat and Feishu channels. Unlike Gemini CLI it speaks the OpenAI, Anthropic and Gemini APIs, so any compatible provider works through modelProviders in ~/.qwen/settings.json. The free Qwen OAuth tier ended on April 15, 2026: the tool is still free, and the models come from Alibaba's Coding Plan or Token Plan, a built-in third-party provider, a local model or a custom provider.
Continue and Qwen Code both run on Standard Compute
