head to head · open source
Continue vs Tabby
Continue has 35,946 GitHub stars, 5,395 forks, 951 open issues and last shipped 2 days ago. Tabby has 33,884 stars, 1,788 forks, 335 open issues and last shipped 3 months ago. Continue leads on adoption by 6% (35,946 vs 33,884 stars). Continue is written in TypeScript under Apache-2.0; Tabby is written in Rust under a custom or non-standard licence. Continue has attracted 15% as many forks as stars, Tabby 5%. Continue was the more recently maintained of the two, and both are self-hostable with no licence fee. The two share 2 topic tags (ai, developer-tools), 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
| Continue | Tabby | |
|---|---|---|
| GitHub stars | ★ 36K | ★ 34K |
| License | Apache-2.0 | Custom / other |
| Written in | TypeScript | Rust |
| Last push | 2026-09-16 | 2026-06-30 |
| Forks | ⑂ 5.4K | ⑂ 1.8K |
| Self-hosting | Yes | Yes |
| Data ownership | Your server | Your server |
pick Continue if
- You weight community size — 36K stars and counting
- You want the Apache-2.0 license terms
- Your stack matches TypeScript
- You value the larger contributor base for long-term maintenance
pick Tabby if
- You want the Tabby feature set and don't need the biggest community
- You prefer the Custom / other license terms
- Your stack matches Rust
- You evaluated both and Tabby fits your workflow better
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 →
About Tabby
Tabby is a self hosted, open source AI coding assistant that acts as an on premises alternative to GitHub Copilot, aimed at developers and engineering teams that want code completion and chat without routing source code through a third party cloud service.
read the full Tabby overview →
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Frequently asked questions
Is Continue or Tabby more popular?
Continue has 35,946 GitHub stars and Tabby has 33,884. Continue has the larger community by that measure.
Are Continue and Tabby free?
Both are open source. Continue is licensed under Apache-2.0, and Tabby has no licence declared in this registry. Both are free to self-host.
What is the difference between Continue and Tabby?
Continue is written in TypeScript and Tabby in Rust. The practical differences are community size, licence terms, language stack and release cadence — all compared in the table above.
Which should I choose, Continue or Tabby?
Choose Continue if you want the larger community (35,946 stars) or its Apache-2.0 licence terms. Choose Tabby if its feature set, stack or Custom / other licence fits better. Both are self-hostable.