If you're opposed to using VSCode for whatever reason, that's reasonable. Though, for me personally, the fact that it only lets you use Claude Code strikes me as a much larger negative on net. It's not at all agnostic in terms of AI provider.
That said, VSCode is a popular platform for this for exactly the reason I think consolidation is eventually inevitable: it's got a huge preexisting ecosystem. There are extensions for practically anything you could ask for.
There's likely room for some standalone, focused apps in this space. I just don't see the current wave of "we put a wrapper around Claude Code and gave it some basic MCP and custom prompt management tools like a dozen other applications this week" being sustainable.
They're all going to end up on their own tiny islands unless there's a reason for an ecosystem to develop around them.
There are lots and lots and lots of us that don't like using VSCode, want to use our own IDE of choice and use Claude Code. Terminal / standalone app is best for me there or even better an IDE plugin.
A tiny island is fine for a tool like this - not everything needs an 'ecosystem'.
The thing about tiny islands isn't that every tool needs a sprawling ecosystem to thrive. It's that applications that don't develop a userbase tend to die. This is as true of open source apps as it is commercial ones.
Typically, applications develop a userbase when they offer something that people can't find elsewhere.
What I'm saying isn't "everyone should be using VScode extensions for this"; it's "I see nothing to distinguish this from a bunch of other functionally identical applications and people just keep building them." I literally don't see a single unique feature promoted on the landing page.
My fundamental point is that we're in a gold rush phase where people are all building the same thing. We'll eventually see a handful of apps get popular and effort swell around those instead of everyone reimplementing the same thing. And my money is on that looking a lot like it usually does: the winners will be the apps that find some way to differentiate themselves.
Continue.dev has some features, but it’s on VSCode and Jetbrains