A “chat model” is an LLM that is trained to respond in a conversational format. Because they should be able to answer general questions and generate complex code, the best chat models are typically large, often 405B+ parameters. In Continue, these models are used for normal Chat. The selected chat model will also be used for Edit and Apply if no edit or apply models are specified, respectively.
Model roleBest open modelsBest closed modelsNotes
Chat EditClosed and open models have pretty similar performance

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Best overall experience

For the best overall Chat experience, you will want to use a 400B+ parameter model or one of the frontier models.

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Claude Opus 4.1 and Claude Sonnet 4 from Anthropic

Our current top recommendations are Claude Opus 4.1 and Claude Sonnet 4 from Anthropic.
View the Claude Opus 4.1 model block or Claude Sonnet 4 model block on the hub.

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Gemma from Google DeepMind

If you prefer to use an open-weight model, then the Gemma family of Models from Google DeepMind is a good choice. You will need to decide if you use it through a SaaS model provider, e.g. Together, or self-host it, e.g. Ollama.
Add the Ollama Gemma 3 27B block from the hub

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GPT-4o from OpenAI

If you prefer to use a model from OpenAI, then we recommend GPT-4o.
Add the OpenAI GPT-4o block from the hub

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Grok-2 from xAI

If you prefer to use a model from xAI, then we recommend Grok-2.
Add the xAI Grok-2 block from the hub

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Gemini 2.0 Flash from Google

If you prefer to use a model from Google, then we recommend Gemini 2.0 Flash.
Add the Gemini 2.0 Flash block from the hub

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Local, offline experience

For the best local, offline Chat experience, you will want to use a model that is large but fast enough on your machine.

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Llama 3.1 8B

If your local machine can run an 8B parameter model, then we recommend running Llama 3.1 8B on your machine (e.g. using Ollama or LM Studio).
Add the Ollama Llama 3.1 8b block from the hub

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DeepSeek Coder 2 16B

If your local machine can run a 16B parameter model, then we recommend running DeepSeek Coder 2 16B (e.g. using Ollama or LM Studio).
config.yaml
models:
  - name: DeepSeek Coder 2 16B
    provider: ollama
    model: deepseek-coder-v2:16b

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Other experiences

There are many more models and providers you can use with Chat beyond those mentioned above. Read more here