Amazon Q Developer vs Continue
Compare Amazon Q Developer and Continue by workflow, pricing, privacy, model support, and best use cases.
Amazon Q Developer
Choose Amazon Q Developer when your team builds, operates, or modernizes software on AWS and wants AI help across IDEs, AWS Console, security review, GitLab/GitHub workflows, and application transformation. Choose a provider-neutral agent or full AI IDE if model flexibility, local execution, or non-AWS workflows matter more.
Continue
Choose Continue when model control, open-source extensibility, and repository-defined AI checks matter more than a fully managed AI editor experience.
Amazon Q Developer
- Pricing model
- freemium
- Free plan
- Yes
- Open source
- No
- Local models
- No
- BYOK
- No
- Editor base
- VS Code
Key Differences
Workflow
Amazon Q Developer is an AWS-native AI coding assistant for developers and teams that want IDE coding help, agentic workflows, security review, modernization, and cloud operations guidance across the AWS software lifecycle.
Continue is an open-source AI coding agent and IDE extension ecosystem focused on configurable model access, repository-defined AI checks, and team-controlled coding workflows.
compare.fields.localModels
No
Yes
BYOK
No
Yes
compare.fields.openSource
No
Yes
Feature Comparison
| Feature | Amazon Q Developer | Continue |
|---|---|---|
| Primary workflow | Amazon Q Developer is an AWS-native AI coding assistant for developers and teams that want IDE coding help, agentic workflows, security review, modernization, and cloud operations guidance across the AWS software lifecycle. | Continue is an open-source AI coding agent and IDE extension ecosystem focused on configurable model access, repository-defined AI checks, and team-controlled coding workflows. |
| Type | extension | extension |
| Editor base | VS Code | VS Code |
| Pricing model | freemium | freemium |
| Starting price | $0 | $3 |
| Free plan | Yes | Yes |
| Open source | No | Yes |
| Local models | No | Yes |
| BYOK | No | Yes |
| Platforms | VS Code, JetBrains IDEs, IntelliJ IDEA, PyCharm, WebStorm, Visual Studio 2022 for Windows, Eclipse, AWS Console, AWS Console Mobile Application, GitLab Duo, GitHub and GitHub Enterprise Cloud preview, Microsoft Teams, Slack, AWS websites and documentation pages, Kiro CLI migration path | VS Code, JetBrains IDEs, CLI, GitHub |
| Models | Claude | Anthropic, OpenAI, Azure, Amazon Bedrock, Ollama, Google Gemini, DeepSeek, Mistral, xAI, Vertex AI, Inception, HuggingFace, Groq, Together AI, DeepInfra, OpenRouter, ClawRouter, Tetrate Agent Router Service, Cohere, NVIDIA, Cloudflare, MiniMax, LM Studio, llama.cpp, LlamaStack, llamafile, SambaNova, Watson x, Sagemaker, Nebius |
| Enterprise features | IAM Identity Center support, Admin dashboard, User management, Policy management, Organization billing, Pro subscriptions, Data collection automatically opted out for Pro, IP indemnity for Pro, Reference tracking, Suppress public code suggestions, AWS IAM-aware context, AWS Console integration, GitLab Duo integration, GitHub preview integration, Microsoft Teams integration, Slack integration, Security scanning, Transformation quotas pooled at payer-account level | Shared private agents, Team agent controls, Gmail/GitHub SSO on Team, SAML or OIDC SSO on Company, BYOK on Company, Commitment, invoicing, and SLA on Company, GitHub PR check integration, Centralized Mission Control management |
| Best for | AWS developers, Cloud application teams, Serverless and infrastructure teams, Java modernization projects, .NET modernization projects, Security scanning in IDE workflows, AWS cost and resource investigation, Teams using IAM Identity Center, GitLab Duo users building with AWS, Developers who want AI help across IDE and AWS Console workflows, Organizations that need AWS-native governance and admin controls | Developers who want AI coding assistance inside VS Code without switching to a full AI-native editor., Teams that want AI review rules stored in the repository and enforced as PR status checks., Organizations that need model flexibility across cloud, local, self-hosted, and gateway providers., Developers building custom coding agents with YAML configuration, rules, prompts, models, and tools., Engineering teams experimenting with AI quality gates before adopting larger autonomous coding systems. |
| Not best for | Teams that are not invested in AWS, Developers who want local model execution, Users who need provider-neutral BYOK model routing, Non-technical users looking for prompt-to-app builders, Developers who want a full standalone AI IDE, Teams that need open-source agent runtime control, Workflows where AI agents cannot read files, write diffs, or run shell commands | Users who want a polished all-in-one AI IDE with minimal configuration., Teams that prefer a single vendor-managed model and billing experience., JetBrains-heavy teams that need the IDE plugin to be the primary supported path., Users who do not want token-based billing for hosted model usage., Organizations that are uncomfortable with the current read-only status of the legacy main GitHub repository. |
Use Case Winners
Both Amazon Q Developer and Continue have comparable signals here.
Continue supports local model workflows.
Amazon Q Developer lists more team or enterprise controls.
Both Amazon Q Developer and Continue have comparable signals here.
Continue supports more model/provider options or BYOK-style workflows.
Continue is marked as open source.
Pricing Comparison
Amazon Q Developer
- Free Tier$0 / month
Perpetual free tier with monthly limits, including 50 agentic requests per month and up to 1,000 lines of code per month for supported transformations.
- Amazon Q Developer Pro$19 / user/month
Expanded usage limits, latest Claude model access, IDE/CLI use, Identity Center support, admin dashboard, policy management, data opt-out by default, and IP indemnity.
- Transformation overage$0.003 / line of code
Applies to Amazon Q Developer transformation usage above included Pro allocations for eligible Java upgrade transformations.
- GitLab Duo with Amazon QGitLab plan-dependent
Available through supported GitLab workflows and tiers; use depends on GitLab Duo and AWS integration setup.
- Enterprise / Organization useUsage-based
Managed through AWS accounts, IAM Identity Center, subscriptions, quotas, governance, and AWS organization billing.
Continue
- Open-source Extension / CLI$0
Apache-2.0 codebase with VS Code extension, CLI, and JetBrains plugin artifacts available from official channels.
- Starter$3 / million tokens
Pay-as-you-go usage for creating and running agents, integrations, and frontier model credits.
- Team$20 / seat/month
Team management, private shared agents, agent controls, Gmail/GitHub SSO, and $10 credits per seat.
- CompanyCustom
Enterprise plan with SAML or OIDC SSO, BYOK, commitments, invoicing, and SLA.
Privacy & Security
Amazon Q Developer
Amazon Q Developer can process prompts, code context, local project files, diffs, shell output, security scan context, AWS resource metadata, GitLab or GitHub workflow context, and chat content depending on where it is used. AWS states that Amazon Q Developer Pro proprietary content is not used for service improvement, while the Free tier provides opt-out controls. Teams should still avoid exposing secrets, credentials, regulated data, or production tokens in prompts, files, terminal output, repositories, or connected chat and DevOps tools.
Continue
Continue documents anonymous telemetry in the open-source extensions, says it strips personally identifiable information, and provides opt-out controls for IDE extensions and the CLI. Local and offline setups are documented, but privacy also depends on the chosen model provider, GitHub integration, telemetry settings, and any configured data destinations.
Choose Amazon Q Developer if...
- AWS developers
- Cloud application teams
- Serverless and infrastructure teams
- Java modernization projects
- .NET modernization projects
Choose Continue if...
- Developers who want AI coding assistance inside VS Code without switching to a full AI-native editor.
- Teams that want AI review rules stored in the repository and enforced as PR status checks.
- Organizations that need model flexibility across cloud, local, self-hosted, and gateway providers.
- Developers building custom coding agents with YAML configuration, rules, prompts, models, and tools.
- Engineering teams experimenting with AI quality gates before adopting larger autonomous coding systems.
Avoid Amazon Q Developer if...
- Teams that are not invested in AWS
- Developers who want local model execution
- Users who need provider-neutral BYOK model routing
- Non-technical users looking for prompt-to-app builders
- Developers who want a full standalone AI IDE
Avoid Continue if...
- Users who want a polished all-in-one AI IDE with minimal configuration.
- Teams that prefer a single vendor-managed model and billing experience.
- JetBrains-heavy teams that need the IDE plugin to be the primary supported path.
- Users who do not want token-based billing for hosted model usage.
- Organizations that are uncomfortable with the current read-only status of the legacy main GitHub repository.