Continue.dev Alternatives in 2026: What Still Works

The short answer for a Continue.dev alternative in 2026: for an editor agent, move to Cline; for a terminal agent, move to OpenCode or Aider. All three are open-source and bring-your-own-key, which is why people were on Continue in the first place. Continue was acquired by Cursor and its development stopped, but the Apache-2.0 code is not deleted, so you are switching for maintenance, not survival. And if the point was running an agent from your phone, Cosyra runs any of them from a cloud container.

This roundup was written by the Cosyra team. Cosyra is one of the options below, so read us as an interested party, but we pulled every number here first-hand from the GitHub API on 2026-07-25 and we name where the open-source tools beat us. We compared the alternatives on license, cost, the surface they run on, and whether anyone is still shipping fixes.

Why people are leaving Continue

Continue was one of the better-known open-source AI coding agents: a VS Code and JetBrains extension plus the cn terminal CLI, all Apache-2.0, all bring-your-own-key. Then Cursor acquired it. On 2026-07-25 we hit the GitHub API directly: continuedev/continue shows 35,115 stars, archived:false, and a last set of releases dated 2026-06-19. Since then only documentation commits have landed on main. So the code is alive enough to clone and run, but nobody is shipping features or fixes.

Here is the opinion we hold that Cursor would push back on: telling a Continue refugee to "just move to Cursor" misreads why they were on Continue at all. People chose Continue because it was open-source and BYOK, not a paid subscription IDE. The acquirer is a paid subscription IDE. That is a fine product, but it is the opposite of what a Continue user optimized for, so the honest migration targets are the other open, BYOK tools, not the one that absorbed it. We would rather lose you to Cline than pretend Cursor is a like-for-like swap.

If you used the VS Code extension: Cline

Most people met Continue as the sidebar in VS Code. The closest replacement with the same shape is Cline: an Apache-2.0 agent that runs as a VS Code extension, a JetBrains plugin, and a CLI, all on your own key. First-hand on 2026-07-25 it had 65,052 stars and was actively developed, with commits landing the same week we checked.

• Where Cline beats us: it is free and open-source, it lives inside your editor with inline diffs, and it runs entirely on your own machine with no hosted container. If your Continue workflow was editor-centric on a desktop, Cline is a more natural fit than a phone terminal. See the Cline on phone guide for the honest mobile caveat.
• Where it does not help: like Continue, Cline ships no mobile app. There is a closed GitHub thread stating native mobile is not on the roadmap. To drive it from a phone you still need a Linux shell somewhere.

If you used the cn CLI: OpenCode or Aider

If you lived in Continue's cn terminal, move to a terminal agent that is still shipping. Two honest picks, both BYOK:

OpenCode: the fast-moving terminal agent

OpenCode is MIT-licensed and terminal-native. On 2026-07-25 it had 189,697 stars and it ships multiple releases a day, which is the opposite of Continue's stalled main. Install it with npm i -g opencode-ai (we saw version 1.18.5 the day we checked). It is also the agent we hear most Continue terminal users naming in migration threads. We pre-install it in Cosyra, so a phone session is a low-stakes place to try it against your old cn habits; the walkthrough is in OpenCode on phone.

Aider: git-centric, but development is paused

Aider is an Apache-2.0 terminal pair programmer built around git commits. On 2026-07-25 it had 47,697 stars and installs with pip install aider-chat. We will be straight about a wrinkle: its main branch has had no commits since 2026-05-22, so adoption is still climbing but active development is paused. It is a strong tool and a real option; just do not switch off one stalled project onto another without knowing that. More in Aider on phone.

The alternatives at a glance

Comparison current as of 2026-07-25. Stars are from the GitHub API; "phone app" means a first-party native mobile client, which none of the open-source tools have.

* OpenCode has no first-party app; a third-party native Termux build (from the community) exists but lags upstream releases.

Where Cosyra fits: the phone runtime none of them have

We will not pretend Cosyra is a drop-in for Continue's editor sidebar. It is not an editor extension, and if you want inline autocomplete in VS Code on a laptop, Cline is the better answer. What we are is the runtime for the case the open-source tools all punt on: running an agent from an actual phone.

The reason this matters is physical. Continue, Cline, OpenCode, and Aider all assume you are sitting at a desktop with a real shell. But the moment you are on a train, on the couch, or waiting in a doctor's office, that shell is not there. We ship a persistent Ubuntu container and a native iOS and Android app, so the shell comes with you. You npm i -g Cline or OpenCode, or install Aider with pip, or run Continue's own cn, and drive it from your phone.

The trade-off is honest: we are a paid hosted service, so if your priority is free and local on hardware you already own, one of the open-source tools on your laptop wins. If your priority is "the agent is with me on my phone without me maintaining a server," that is the gap we fill. The full desktop comparison lives in Cosyra vs Cursor, since Cursor is the acquirer and the tool most Continue users will be pushed toward.

Who should pick what

Choose Cline if you want the shortest move from Continue's VS Code extension and you work mostly at a desktop: same open, BYOK, editor-agent shape, actively developed. Choose OpenCode if you lived in the cn terminal and want the fastest-moving open-source terminal agent. Choose Aider if you want a git-first terminal workflow and you are comfortable with a project whose main is currently paused. Choose Cosyra if the whole point was running an agent from your phone and you would rather pay for a maintained container than babysit a VPS.

Try the open-source tools first if you code almost entirely at a desktop, you want zero monthly cost, or you need to work fully offline. Those are real cases where a free local install beats a cloud container, and we would rather you land somewhere that fits than churn off us in a week.

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