Continue CLIvspi
Generated from the two spec rows. Green marks the better value where a spec has a clear direction. Everything else is just different.
Continue CLI
Continue · Terminal agent
#24OSSMCP
Panel
6.42 spec wins
- Reliability
- 6.2
- Usefulness
- 6.3
- Cost
- 8.0
- Longevity
- 5.2
“It installs by piping a URL straight into your shell, then politely asks permission before it touches a single file.”
pi
Earendil Inc. · Terminal agent
#9OSS
Panel
6.81 spec wins
- Reliability
- 6.5
- Usefulness
- 6.5
- Cost
- 7.3
- Longevity
- 7.0
“A coding agent that ships themes, which is the first time anyone has cared what the terminal looks like while a file gets deleted.”
Spec by spec
| Spec | Continue CLI | pi |
|---|---|---|
| Architecture | ||
| Category | Terminal agent | Terminal agent |
| Runs | local | local |
| Platforms | macos, linux, windows | macos, linux, windows |
| Context window | not documented | not documented |
| Protocols | ||
| MCP client | Yes | No |
| MCP server | No | No |
| Capabilities | ||
| Runs terminal commands | Yes | Yes |
| Multi-file edits | Yes | Yes |
| Git operations | Yes | No |
| Browser control | No | No |
| Sandboxed execution | NoThe docs describe running the CLI inside a Docker container, not sandboxing the agent in one. | No |
| Multi-agent orchestration | No | No |
| Headless / CI mode | Yes | Yes |
| Models | ||
| Backbone | any provider configured in config.yaml, Anthropic | OpenAI, Anthropic, Google, OpenRouter, llama.cpp |
| Bring your own model | Yes | Yes |
| Local models | YesThe CLI reads the same ~/.continue/config.yaml provider schema as the IDE extensions, including a custom apiBase, so any local server can be configured; the CLI pages defer to that reference rather than naming Ollama or LM Studio. | Yes |
| Cost | ||
| Pricing model | byok | byok |
| Starts at | $0/mo | $0/mo |
| Free tier | Yes | Yes |
| Bring your own key | Yes | Yes |
| Openness | ||
| Open source | Yes | Yes |
| License | Apache-2.0 | MIT |
| GitHub stars | 36,084 | 111,339 |
Which one would each critic pick
| Critic | Continue CLI | pi | Pick |
|---|---|---|---|
| El Juez | — | — | not enough reviews |
| El Amigo | 6.8 | 7.5 | pi — Pick pi if you want a terminal agent small enough to read in an afternoon and extend in TypeScript; pick OpenCode if your workflow already depends on MCP servers. |
| El Crítico | 6.3 | 6.8 | pi — Extensions are TypeScript modules loaded into the agent's own process, so a package is a supply chain, and the install line already says --ignore-scripts. |
| El Profesor | 6.5 | 7.3 | pi — A unified LLM API, an agent loop, a TUI and a CLI in one monorepo; sessions branch into a tree with compaction that summarises abandoned branches; no benchmark is published. |
| La Inversora | 5.3 | 5.5 | pi — Earendil Inc. holds 101,000 stars and an MIT agent with no price, no hosted tier and no revenue line on the page; the crowd is the asset and it is unmonetised. |
| La Jefa | 6.0 | 5.5 | Continue CLI — Zero licence for sixty and a single-shot flag that fits our pipelines, but sign-in goes to a vendor account by default and nothing on the row mentions SSO or audit. |
| El Hacker | 7.8 | 8.5 | pi — MIT TypeScript, extensions that add tools, commands and UI, /llama for llama.cpp on my box, ANTHROPIC_API_KEY in the environment, and packages to share it all. |
Picks are derived from each critic's own scores. Humans vote on matchups on the duels page.