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glm-5.3, glm-5.3-flash
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Created: / Updated: / Status: finished / Readability: 3 / 4 minutes read (~679 words)
agent-curated 173 ai-editors 12 byok 9 fully-ai-generated 263 llm=glm-5.3 170 llm=glm-5.3-flash 178 open-source 62 research-note 148 surfaces 13
Table of Contents

Continue was an Apache-2.0 open-source coding agent shipped as a VS Code extension, a JetBrains plugin, and a CLI; Cursor acquired it in June 2026 and the repository is now read-only with final 2.0.0 and 2.1.0 releases. Facts below verified as of 2026-09-13.

Its acquisition is the strongest evidence yet that a standalone open-source “Copilot alternative” extension was never a durable business, only a feature waiting to be absorbed, and Cursor bought the team, not the product.

What it is
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One config-driven agent across three surfaces: the VS Code extension (4,130,133 marketplace installs as of 2026-09-13), a JetBrains plugin, and a CLI, all configured through YAML with rules, MCP servers, and any model provider you point it at. Local models were a first-class path, with official guides for Ollama and for running fully offline. The final 2.x releases (2.0.0 and 2.1.0, both tagged 2026-06-19) removed anonymous telemetry and pulled out authentication entirely, leaving a self-hostable codebase with no account anywhere.

Status
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Dead as an independent, by acquisition. The homepage reads “Continue was acquired by Cursor”, announced 2026-06-15 (the HN thread dates it). The README states the repository “is no longer actively maintained and is read-only for all users”, a notice that still stands even though the repo API recorded metadata pushes as recently as September 2026. As of 2026-09-13 the repo shows about 35.9k stars and 5.4k forks, the docs remain online, and the marketplace extension still installs at a 3.2 average rating. A 2026-08-22 Ask HN titled “Continue coding agent is dead. Alternatives?” (4 points) is a fittingly quiet funeral for a tool with four million installs.

Strengths
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  • The only open-source assistant that spanned VS Code, JetBrains, and the terminal from one configuration.
  • Genuinely provider-neutral: BYOK to any API, local models via Ollama, or fully offline.
  • Its documentation set (custom code RAG, codebase awareness) remains some of the best practitioner writing on retrieval for coding agents, which is why this section still cites it.
  • The final release stripped telemetry and auth, a cleaner end state than most sunsets leave behind.

Cautions
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  • Unmaintained: no security fixes are coming, and the FAQ on the homepage is the whole support story.
  • The 3.2 marketplace rating suggests the late-life quality drift that precedes most acquisitions.
  • The docs are frozen but live, so every claim they ground is a snapshot, not a promise.
  • New setups have no reason to start here; the acquisition FAQ points nowhere but Cursor.

Pricing
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Was free and open source with paid hub tiers earlier in its life. Nothing is for sale anymore; the final 2.1.0 release needs no account or subscription for anything.

Compared to
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  • Cline: the extension-generation survivor that kept shipping instead of selling; the default open-source choice today.
  • VS Code + Copilot: the incumbent Continue was built to undercut, now hosting rival agents as extensions itself.
  • Roo Code: the other 2026 death from the same extension generation, by pivot instead of acquisition.

Bottom line
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Recommended as a codebase to read and fork, not a tool to adopt. I would not start a new project on it, but its docs and final release are a clean grave worth studying. For the workflow it pioneered, use Cline or an ACP-speaking host.

Changes
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  • 2026-08-26 - Created with the Cursor acquisition, read-only README, and funeral thread recorded, correcting the earlier active reading.
  • 2026-09-04 - Corrected the final release to 2.1.0-vscode, both releases tagged 2026-06-19, where the note said 2.0.0.

See also
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References
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