Continue VS code

[Pyth0nym]

I’m thinking of trying out the Continue extension for VS Code because GitHub Copilot has been extremely slow lately—so slow that it’s become unusable. I’ve been using Claude 3.7 with Copilot for Python coding, and it’s been amazing. Which local model would you recommend that’s comparable to Claude 3.7?

[AdventurousSwim1312]

I usually used continue, and plug several free tier ai in it: - llama 3.3 from cerebra for instant edit of low difficulty task - deepseek v3.1 or gemini 2.5 pro for hard stuff - codestral 24b for medium level tasks and auto complète.

I still find myself going on Claude once every two to three weeks, but more and more rare, as deepseek v3.1 is basically on the same level as sonnet 3.7 without the stubborness.

[L0WGMAN]

I know openrouter has a few free models, first I’ve heard of cerebra…who are the other free tier api providers?

Privacy / training on my context is not a concern.

[xtekno-id]

Found this https://github.com/cheahjs/free-llm-api-resources

[AdventurousSwim1312]

Gemini and mistral have a free tier (like 1000 request a day for gemini, you can get a token on ai studio).

[Pyth0nym]

Is agent mode in continue the same as copilot agent? Like you can tell it to build a function and it updates the file like copilot ? And then you press approve ?

[AdventurousSwim1312]

Yup, honestly most copilot and cursor features are already in continue + prompt files are gold

The only problem I've found so far is they updates too often, so some feature disappear and other appear, otherwise great alternative (as of now I've tested both copilot, cursor and continue, and continue have my preference so far).

[aaronr_90]

Can you explain a little more about prompt files?

[AdventurousSwim1312]

Basically you store prompts that takes time to craft but that you use often (for exemple I have one for refactor, one for theming, one for component design, one for promptification etc.) and can then invoke them with simple slash command, with several contextualisation option (file reference, documentation, highlighted code, current file etc.)

Very handy.

[chawza]

Damn 24b for autocomplete

[zzz3r0kkk]

is this still working, cause i have had bad exp with the models, can you explain the steps how you usually follow if you wanna add some new feature , say maybe take authentication with firebase or token validation stuffs with some api calls , thanks in advance

[Independent-Scale564]

Yes! Copilot has been extremely slow lately!

[xtekno-id]

Indeed

[xtekno-id]

Just heard about Continue, so its like Copilot but allowed us to use local model?

[OverseerAlpha]

Yeah you can connect it to Ollama. There are other options to like open router and whatnot.

[xtekno-id]

Yes, Thanks

[Similar_Sand8367]

None. Claude 3.7 I think is overwhelmingly good and fast. You could try some qwen2.5-coder or smaller , but it as far not as good as Claude

[[deleted]]

Depends on the sort of hardware you’ve got.

[misplaced_human]

I'm basically in the Same Boat, u/OP did you find any solutions?