Continue

Inside VS Code, Continue adds chat and autocomplete that you can wire up to the models and context you choose.

Continue is an open-source AI code assistant that runs as an extension in the editor, so you stay in your IDE instead of pasting code into a separate chatbot window.

The main selling point is customization.

You can connect any model and any source of context, then shape the autocomplete and chat behavior to match how your team writes software.

The project describes itself as an autopilot for software development that is built to learn continuously from your development data, which is a different pitch from assistants locked to a single vendor's model.

The extension brings ChatGPT-style conversation into the editor, but you are not tied to one provider.

That flexibility is the reason to pick Continue over a fixed copilot.

It works for developers who want control over which models see their code and how suggestions are produced.

The trade-off of any open, configurable tool is that you will spend some time setting it up the way you want it.