head to head · open source
caveman vs Continue
caveman has 108,615 GitHub stars, 6,296 forks, 155 open issues and last shipped today. Continue has 36,074 stars, 5,447 forks, 951 open issues and last shipped yesterday. caveman leads on adoption by 201% (108,615 vs 36,074 stars). caveman is written in Go under Apache-2.0; Continue is written in TypeScript under Apache-2.0. caveman has attracted 6% as many forks as stars, Continue 15%. caveman was the more recently maintained of the two, and both are self-hostable with no licence fee. The two share 1 topic tag (ai), so they are genuine substitutes rather than adjacent tools.
Two open source projects, one decision. Both are free and self-hostable — the differences are community size, license terms, language stack and release pace.
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Side by side
| caveman | Continue | |
|---|---|---|
| GitHub stars | ★ 109K | ★ 36K |
| License | Apache-2.0 | Apache-2.0 |
| Written in | Go | TypeScript |
| Last push | 2026-10-01 | 2026-09-30 |
| Forks | ⑂ 6.3K | ⑂ 5.4K |
| Self-hosting | Yes | Yes |
| Data ownership | Your server | Your server |
pick caveman if
- You weight community size — 109K stars and counting
- You want the Apache-2.0 license terms
- Your stack matches Go
- You value the larger contributor base for long-term maintenance
pick Continue if
- You want the Continue feature set and don't need the biggest community
- You prefer the Apache-2.0 license terms
- Your stack matches TypeScript
- You evaluated both and Continue fits your workflow better
About caveman
why use many token when few do trick Your AI coding agent bills by the word and writes like it knows that. Caveman make it stop. ▶️ ThePrimeagen reacts: "No way this actually works" 🏆 1 on GitHub Trending · July 2026 · 🥇 1 Repository of the Day on Trendshift · April 2026 1 on Hacker News · 904 points · 366 comments · 8 Product of the Day on Product Hunt 📄 Cited in CAVEWOMAN , an Adobe Research paper that measured caveman style output cutting cost 1.4 to 2.4×, up to 3× · 🧪 Tested by JetBrains on 86 real coding tasks: "costs you nothing measurable in quality" ⚡ One command, no account, no API key. npx skills…
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About Continue
Continue is an open source coding agent designed to assist developers directly within their IDE or terminal. It operates as a CLI tool, VS Code extension, and JetBrains plugin, enabling natural language interaction with codebases to generate, edit, and explain code. The project lives in the AI assisted developer tools ecosystem and is built with TypeScript under the Apache 2.0 license.
read the full Continue overview →
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Frequently asked questions
Is caveman or Continue more popular?
caveman has 108,615 GitHub stars and Continue has 36,074. caveman has the larger community by that measure.
Are caveman and Continue free?
Both are open source. caveman is licensed under Apache-2.0 and Continue under Apache-2.0. Neither carries a licence fee.
What is the difference between caveman and Continue?
caveman is written in Go and Continue in TypeScript. The practical differences are community size, licence terms, language stack and release cadence — all compared in the table above.
Which should I choose, caveman or Continue?
Choose caveman if you want the larger community (108,615 stars) or its Apache-2.0 licence terms. Choose Continue if its feature set, stack or Apache-2.0 licence fits better. Both are self-hostable.