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Decision brief

Continue Review: Should a Team Keep Running It After the Cursor Acquisition?

Plan your move off Continue. Its final release still runs on your own models, and nobody maintains it.

Reading time
3 min read
Sources
20 cited
In this piece
Continue−9 Mixed

GILD verdict

Skip Continue for new rollouts, and run its final release only until a maintained successor is in place.

It still runs on your own or local models with no Continue account. Nothing upstream fixes it, so a team that stays owns every change.

Continue

AI Coding Agent by Continue Dev, Inc. (acquired by Cursor)

−9 Mixed
Product page

Fit and limits

Who it fits

  • Engineers already use Continue and you need time to choose and pilot a successor.
  • Code must stay on local models or company-controlled endpoints such as Amazon Bedrock, Azure OpenAI, or a vLLM server, and the final release already works there.
  • You want the source open for audit or a fork: the repository is Apache 2.0, with 36,196 GitHub stars on Oct 12, 2026.
  • Air-gapped machines can install the 2.0.0 VSIX from Open VSX and run against local models with no internet access.

Where it falls short

  • Nobody maintains it. The repository is read-only, so new models, IDE versions and security issues get no fix. The only commits after the final release, on July 21, 2026, moved the documentation site.
  • No fork has taken over. The most-starred fork on GitHub, PearAI's at 122 stars on Oct 25, 2026, last changed on June 18, 2026. The New Stack's June 22, 2026 report calls the deal an acqui-hire that shut the product down, and Cursor has published no plan for Continue's features.
  • Continue has no SSO, central model policy or usage dashboard: the final release removed sign-in, Cursor acquired Continue in June 2026, user data was deleted, and the hosted Continue Hub no longer resolves.
  • The JetBrains plugin's last release is 1.0.67 from March 27, 2026, and the repository recommends the CLI over it. On October 24, 2026 a user reported that this version cuts off streamed replies from Gemini's OpenAI-compatible endpoint, in the CLI and the IDE.
  • Output quality follows the model and setup each engineer picks.

Implementation reality

  1. Pin and distribute the final build

    Install VS Code extension 2.0.0, the final stable build, from the Marketplace, or from a VSIX downloaded from Open VSX for offline machines, and turn off extension auto-update so every machine stays on the same build. JetBrains users are on plugin 1.0.67; the repository recommends the cn CLI for them.

  2. Share configuration as code

    Continue reads models by role, context providers, rules, prompts, documentation sites, MCP servers, and data destinations from config.yaml. Keep a reviewed copy, put project rules in .continue/rules and MCP servers in .continue/mcpServers, and reference keys as secrets from a .env file kept out of Git.

  3. Set tool policies

    In the IDE, Agent mode asks before each tool call unless the tool's policy is Automatic, and Plan mode offers only read-only tools. In the CLI, edits, writes, and Bash default to ask, choices persist in ~/.continue/permissions.yaml, and headless runs exclude any tool that would ask unless it is explicitly allowed.

  4. Check adoption and release state

    On Oct 12, 2026 the VS Code listing showed about 4.3 million installs and a rating of 3.2 out of 5 from 188 reviews. Open VSX showed about 1.68 million downloads and JetBrains Marketplace about 1.21 million. The last releases are VS Code 2.0.0 and 2.1.0 on June 19, 2026.

What to measure in your pilot

  • Check GitHub's fork list for Continue each quarter, and adopt a fork only if it ships a release that runs your config.yaml and model endpoints unchanged.
  • After each VS Code or JetBrains IDE update, run one scripted chat, edit and autocomplete task on a test machine first; the first failure sets your exit date.
  • Log accepted autocomplete suggestions per engineer for two weeks on Continue and on the successor pilot, and switch once the successor's acceptance rate matches Continue's.

Sources

Official documentation
17
Public source
3
  1. Continue (acquired by Cursor)Official documentationcontinue.dev
  2. Continue on GitHub (continuedev/continue)Official documentationgithub.com
  3. Continue releases on GitHubOfficial documentationgithub.com
  4. Continue license (Apache 2.0)Official documentationgithub.com
  5. Continue on the Visual Studio MarketplaceOfficial documentationmarketplace.visualstudio.com
  6. Continue on Open VSXOfficial documentationopen-vsx.org
  7. Continue on JetBrains MarketplaceOfficial documentationplugins.jetbrains.com
  8. Continue docs: Model providers overviewOfficial documentationdocs.continue.dev
  9. Continue docs: config.yaml referenceOfficial documentationdocs.continue.dev
  10. Continue docs: RulesOfficial documentationdocs.continue.dev
  11. Continue docs: MCPOfficial documentationdocs.continue.dev
  12. Continue docs: How Agent mode worksOfficial documentationdocs.continue.dev
  13. Continue docs: Plan modeOfficial documentationdocs.continue.dev
  14. Continue docs: CLI tool permissionsOfficial documentationdocs.continue.dev
  15. Continue docs: CLI headless modeOfficial documentationdocs.continue.dev
  16. Continue docs: Running Continue without internetOfficial documentationdocs.continue.dev
  17. Continue docs: Development dataOfficial documentationdocs.continue.dev
  18. The New Stack: Cursor quietly acquires Continue, an open-source alternative to GitHub Copilot (Jun 22, 2026)Public sourcethenewstack.io
  19. GitHub: forks of continuedev/continue, sorted by stars (top fork updated Jun 18, 2026)Public sourcegithub.com
  20. GitHub issue #13417: stream parser crashes on extra unknown JSON fields in CLI (cn) and IDE (Oct 24, 2026)Public sourcegithub.com

Keep reading

  1. Buyer guideRunning Continue's Final Release: A Team PlaybookPin the release, keep a single shared config.yaml and rule set, set tool policies, and review Continue's changes before they merge.
  2. Buyer guideContinue on Local and Self-Hosted ModelsWhich model to give each role, how to serve it from Ollama, LM Studio, or vLLM, and what practitioners report about speed and quality.
  3. Buyer guideMoving Off Continue: A Migration ChecklistInventory a team's Continue setup and carry its models, rules, MCP servers, and prompts to a maintained tool, and run a pilot before removing Continue.
Read the research