Continue vs MiniMax: Side-by-Side Comparison 2026
Continue vs MiniMax comparison 2026. Side-by-side features, pricing & capabilities.
Continue is an editor extension from Continue — open-source ai coding extension. MiniMax is an AI assistant from MiniMax — ai assistant and model provider with coding capabilities.
Continue
Continue — AI Code Assistant from Continue. Open Source IDE Extension.
- ✓ Code completions
- ✓ AI chat
- ✓ Agentic mode
- ✓ Multi-file editing
- ✓ Terminal commands
$20/mo · 3 plans
MiniMax
MiniMax is a Shanghai-based AI company (Hong Kong Stock Exchange listed) offering the MiniMax Agent app and API access to their M2.5 and M2.1 models. M2.5 scores 80.2% on SWE-Bench Verified at roughly 1/20th the cost of Claude Opus. Models work inside Claude Code, Cline, Cursor, OpenCode, and other coding tools via Anthropic- and OpenAI-compatible API endpoints.
- ✓ AI chat
- ✓ Agentic mode
- ✓ Multi-file editing
- ✓ Terminal commands
- ✓ Test generation
Free / $10/mo · 6 plans
| Feature | Continue | MiniMax |
|---|---|---|
| Category | Extension | Assistant |
| Starting Price | $20/mo | Free |
| Model Family | Multi-model (any) | MiniMax |
| Open Source | Yes (Apache 2.0) | Partial (M2.1 open-weight on Hugging Face) |
Pricing verified Mar 20, 2026. Continue pricing | MiniMax pricing
Key Differences
- Category: Continue is an editor extension; MiniMax is an AI assistant.
- Free tier: MiniMax has a free tier; Continue does not.
- Starting price: Continue starts at $20/mo; MiniMax starts at $10/mo.
- Model family: Continue uses Multi-model (any); MiniMax uses MiniMax.
- Open source: Continue: Yes (Apache 2.0). MiniMax: Partial (M2.1 open-weight on Hugging Face).
- Bring your own key: Continue supports BYOK; MiniMax does not.
- Platforms: Continue runs on Linux, Windows, macOS; MiniMax runs on API, Desktop, Web.
- Provider: Continue is built by Continue; MiniMax is built by MiniMax.
Which Should You Choose?
Choose Continue if you want open-source AI coding with full control over model and context. Choose MiniMax if you want frontier-level coding at 1/10th to 1/20th the cost of Claude Opus or GPT-5. Read our full reviews to see which fits your workflow.