How to choose between Continue and Cursor
Choose between Continue and Cursor by the editor people already open, who reviews a diff, and who approves a command. The current Continue homepage says Continue was acquired by Cursor and that the open-source codebase remains freely available. Neither set of docs ranks the two. Write the choice against the workflow.
On this page
Start from the editor already open
Note which editor people already open, where a diff is reviewed, who may approve a terminal command, and whether the open-source codebase must remain available. Leave those four unwritten and it is too early to compare the products.
If the team already delivers through Custom software, websites, and applications, the tool has to leave its diff in the review you already run. Changing the editor does not change the reviewer or the rule for the main branch. The Copilot comparison is in How to choose between Cursor and GitHub Copilot. This note covers Continue and Cursor.
What the Continue pages say now
The current Continue homepage says Continue has joined Cursor and that Continue was acquired by Cursor. The same page describes the earlier product as an open-source coding agent and says the open-source codebase remains freely available as a foundation for others. The page shows no publish date; the sentences above follow the current page.
The current Continue docs home lists Agent mode for development tasks, Chat mode for questions and for clarifying code, Edit mode for changing a section without leaving the current file, autocomplete as you type, and the Continue CLI (cn) in the terminal. The page shows no publish date. This note does not compare models.
Agent, plan, chat, and autocomplete
The current Continue Agent quick start lists three modes. Chat has no tools and is conversation only. Plan uses read-only tools for exploration and planning. Agent has the tools for making changes. The page says Agent or Plan can show Not Supported when the selected model or provider does not support tools, or when Continue does not yet support tools for that combination. By default, Agent asks permission before a tool call: Continue allows it and Cancel rejects it. Tool policies can exclude a tool or make that tool automatic. The page shows no publish date.
The current Continue autocomplete quick start describes inline suggestions as you type. Turn them on from the Continue button in the status bar, or by enabling Tab Autocomplete in the IDE settings. Accept part of a suggestion with Cmd/Ctrl and the right arrow. The page also gives a shortcut for forcing a suggestion and labels that shortcut for VS Code. The page shows no publish date. How autocomplete and an agent split a task is covered in What is the difference between an AI coding agent and autocomplete.
What Cursor Agent and Tab do
The current Cursor docs home describes Cursor as a coding agent for building software: understanding a codebase, planning and building features, fixing bugs, reviewing changes, and working with tools you already use. The same page lists connections that include GitHub, GitLab, Azure DevOps, Bitbucket, JetBrains, Slack, and Linear. The page also has a model and pricing table. This note does not compare models and does not quote prices. The page shows no publish date.
The current Cursor Agent page describes Agent as an assistant that can complete complex coding tasks, run terminal commands, and edit code, opened from the side pane with Cmd+I. The page says there is no limit on tool calls during a task, and it lists tools that include searching files, reading files, editing files, and running terminal commands. A checkpoint is created before significant changes, stored locally, and kept separate from Git. Restoring it reverts files and does not delete the conversation. The page says to use checkpoints only to undo Agent changes, and to use Git for lasting version control. The page shows no publish date. The Cursor Tab page describes Tab as autocomplete from recent edits, surrounding code, and linter errors: Tab accepts, Escape or further typing rejects, and Tab can change several lines at once. That page shows no publish date.
Record the acquisition before you adopt
Before adoption, write down whether people open Continue inside the IDE they already use, or Cursor’s own editor. The acquisition sentences on the Continue homepage do not say that Agent, Plan, Chat, or autocomplete in the docs have stopped. The docs site still describes those modes. Keep “the homepage states an acquisition” and “the docs still describe these modes” as two lines in the adoption note, with the date you read the pages.
Command approval stays a rule the team writes. The Continue Agent page sets the default as asking permission first. The Cursor Agent page describes tools and checkpoints; the passages cited here do not state a product rule that every terminal command waits for a person. Whichever you open, a command that installs a dependency, pushes to a remote, changes a database, or deletes files stops for a person. How to draw the directories is covered in How to connect an AI coding tool to an existing codebase.
Choose from the workflow you already run
When the team will stay in the IDE it already opens, and adoption requires that the open-source codebase remain available, start from the Continue docs. Check that Agent, Plan, Chat, autocomplete, and the CLI are the layers people will actually use, and keep tool permission on the default of asking each time until a tool policy names what may run on its own.
When review already happens inside Cursor’s editor, start from Cursor Agent and Tab. Treat a checkpoint as a local snapshot for undoing Agent edits. The merge still goes through Git and the review you already run. This note does not treat the acquisition as a reason to prefer either product, and it does not call any combination the better one.
When to leave the choice for later
If the reviewer, the command-approval rule, and the excluded directories are still unwritten, leave every agent off a repository that can change the main branch. A small edit inside a file you already have open can stay with inline autocomplete.
This note does not compare speed, defects, or licence cost. The pages cited above show no publish date; the quotations follow the current official text. Until you have your own review record, check the choice by whether the editor is the one people already open, whether the open-source condition is written down, whether the diff entered review, and whether commands were approved under the rule.