There are already a bunch of open source, free, and popular "AI coding agent" extensions for VS Code:

1) Cline (1.4mil downloads)

2) Roo Code (a fork of Cline, 450k downloads)

Still a drop in the bucket compared to Cursor in terms of # of users, but they're growing pretty fast.

Disclaimer: I maintain Kilo Code, which competes with 1) and 2) so I'm pretty familiar with this space/the growth patterns.

I am constantly surprised how seldom aider is mentioned in threads like this. I understand that it's not directly integrated into the editor, but the "editor + parallel CLI tool chain" paradigm feels so natural to me because we drop to terminal for so many other parts of building software. If you haven't tried it (particularly the architect/editor modality), it's worth a couple of hours of experimenting.

Aider doesn’t provide any interface that’s integrated into the editor tool, as you point out. That might be true for other similar side-by-side tools that I am not aware of.

But, if you tell aider to watch your files, you can drop a specially formatted comment into your file, and aider will see that and use it as a prompt.

So the integration is sort of “implicit”. Which sounds kinda like the cheap way to go, in comparison to the current brand name tools that have their own chat boxes, dropdowns with mode selectors (ask, edit, agent), and so on.

But look further into the future and an ambient interface is probably where we end up. Something where the Ai agent is just watching what you do, maybe even watching your eyes and seeing what you’re attending to, and then harmonizing its attention to what you are attending to.

But I dunno, i’m just guessing

Tight editor integration means better diffs (right in your editor), easier context manager, and other convenience features that CLI-only tools can't have.

This doesn't mean that aider, claude code, etc. aren't very good tools, but it does make sense to distinguish between built-in tools vs external ones. A similar non-AI example is debugging or linting: IDE integration makes it much easier than using a separate tool.

Continue.dev as well

I happy to know that I am not the only one that know about continue.

It's used a lot by self hosters like myself because you can modify their plugin to talk to your local LLM.

roo and cline also can use local llm

Ah thanks I might look at those too then. I'm not coding very much anyway though.

How are you differentiating from the cline/roo's of the world?

Our plan is to be a superset of Cline and Roo's features (we already have all the major features from both) [0]

We also have our own provider, which means no need to bring your own API keys (you can if you like, but it is batteries included by default) and we're not charging anything on top of the API pricing. Instead of monetizing on individual developers, we want it to be free for them and make money eventually off enterprise contracts [1]

[0]: https://blog.kilocode.ai/p/roo-or-cline-were-building-a-supe... [1]: https://kilocode.ai

I can't find any reference to Cline/Roo charging anything on top of API pricing.

Not sure how they'd do it considering you bring your own API keys. Can you link me to a resource?

GP didn't say Cline/Roo charged anything on top.

The comparison table on the kilo site says "OpenRouter without 5% markup" and only puts a checkbox next to kilo.

Yes - with our built-in provider, we provide all the models that OpenRouter provides but without OpenRouter's 5% markup. We provide them at cost (the AI provider cost)

You can most definitely use Openrouter with Roo and Cline. Openrouter leaderboards are dominated by these 2 apps.

But they don't OFFER Openrouter a paid product... You cannot give roo/cline dollars and get openrouter api access.

maybe you could answer a question about kilo usage: If I choose Google Gemini as the API provider and give it my Gemini API key, why does it say that I'm low on credits (and I get API request failures immediately)? As far as I understand gemini 2.5 pro preview is free to use. (and in Cline I'm able to choose Google Gemini as the API provider & provide my API key and it will successfully make API requests)

We added it to the issues: https://github.com/Kilo-Org/kilocode/issues/349

Hey, we can't reproduce it. Could you maybe jump in and give some more details? https://github.com/Kilo-Org/kilocode/issues/349

It looks like a bug to me. Did you report it on GitHub?

I suspect JetBrains will never limit this. I've yet to recall anything in the past where they have done this even when they have a similar offering.

In fact, their own AI extension appears to be pluggable in and of itself. I think they see the value in being easy to adapt different AI solutions to rather than trying to only provide their own.

JetBrain's main business model depends on buying the editor, and if users still see the overall editor better, any AI plugin support will likely just increase the sales.

100% i like some thinks cursor gives me, but i’m to invested in how to use the navigation inside pycharm, i don’t wanna give up that

> They could be just plugins

No, they should be LSPs so that they can be integrated into any editor, not just VSCode.

Microsoft has been dragging their feet when it comes to updating the LSP spec. Many of their Copilot features are done in VSCode, in fact using private APIs that are not accessible to other extensions.

I am all for everyone adopting LSP, but the reality is harsh.

LSP is amazing but also kinda sucks balls. It’s impossible to run VSCode without a million pops in the corner with a million extension errors. It’s so bad.

And autocomplete is the least interesting thing an LLM can do. Cursor’s UX isn’t the end game but has lots great features.

The ideal UX is still being worked out. It’s good that different people are building tools to try different ideas.

They should do this, but this is not the entirety of what they do.

> Microsoft does not want to bend the plugin API enough for that.

What doesn't the current API allow plugins to do? I'm guessing custom UI stuff that lives outside a panel?

Is windsurf essentially the same as cursor? I didn’t realize there was something similar for JetBrains but if it’s a cursor-equivalent for JB that would be wonderful.

Yes

I haven't found any of the jetbrains options (including Windsurf) nearly as satisfying to use as Cursor. But YMMV I guess!