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I really like Cursor, however I think ultimately a good open-source alternative will likely overtake it soon. Keep in mind Cursor is just a fork of VSCode, wit

I really like Cursor, however I think ultimately a good open-source alternative will likely overtake it soon. Keep in mind Cursor is just a fork of VSCode, with AI features that are pretty much just embedded extensions. Their product is great, but many users would prefer a bring-your-own-key & selecting their own model providers.

thomashop 2y ago
I agree with your general point, but there is already a bring-your-own-key and select your own model providers option in Cursor.
- Zion1745 2y ago
  The option you mentioned only works in the chat panel, not with other killer features that utilize the cursor.
  - jadbox 2y ago
    Sadly they disable the Compose feature when using your own Claude key
- anonzzzies 2y ago
  They broke the openrouter integration though; it worked and now it does not anymore. Not sure if it was intentional or not, but it is a PITA.
iansinnott 2y ago
What alternative open source solutions are currently competing with it?
- worldsayshi 2y ago
  I've been using https://github.com/VictorTaelin/AI-scripts https://github.com/VictorTaelin/AI-scripts together with my own nvim plugin that I should publish soon-ish. Also there's https://github.com/yacineMTB/dingllm.nvim https://github.com/yacineMTB/dingllm.nvim which seems promising but quite wip.
thawab 2y ago
continue(yc) is an open source vscode extension. The best thing about cursor is their auto complete feature, their own fine-tuned model. It will be a while for others to build something close to it.
- ode 2y ago
  How much better is cursor than continue? I've been trying continue with codestral and am only moderately impressed so far.
  - LoganDark 2y ago
    Not sure about continue, but I use Cursor for work, and it's really good at predicting simple operations. I rarely use it to actually generate code but it's pretty good at completing the code I'm already writing / the thing I'm already doing.
- cellshade 2y ago
  If you want to talk about in house autocomplete models, Supermaven has superior autocomplete, IMO.
kamaal 2y ago
>>Their product is great, but many users would prefer a bring-your-own-key & selecting their own model providers. On the contrary. Most enterprise users will prefer one package they can buy and not buy the thing piece wise. Big reason why VSCode won was because they were able to provide a lot of things out the box saving the user round trip through the config hell rabbit hole modern vim/emacs ecosystems are. If you want to sell developer tooling products, provide as much as possible out of the box. People want to solve their problems using your tool. Not fix/build problems/missing features in your tool.
- rafaelmn 2y ago
  A big reason copilot spread so fast is because people already trust GitHub with their code - enabling AI doesn't really modify risk. If GH wanted to break TOS and train on your code they could, even without copilot, if you're using GH for private repos. Any other third party needs to get vetted/trusted - I would be the first to doubt an AI startup.
  - kamaal 2y ago
    As more and more people use co-pilot or even cursor, there is likely to be a mad increase in productivity. But also note, there is likely to be a situation like the early days of internet where people write lots of code, but also bug ridden and unreadable code. It will take a few years for things to return to routine.
    - rafaelmn 2y ago
      Meh - personally I see copilot as a mild boost/auto complete++ - helps me type out stuff that's obvious in context but needs to be typed out anyway. I've had it disabled when switching between environments and sometimes not notice for a day - depending on what I'm doing.
- wyclif 2y ago
  >saving the user round trip through the config hell rabbit hole modern vim/emacs ecosystems are That used to be a valid problem, but times have changed. For instance, Neovim has things now like kickstart.nvim and lazy.nvim that solve this problem. I've been test-driving LazyVim for the past month or so and I don't have to config anything anymore because the updates and plugins are sane choices.
GardenLetter27 2y ago
We really need a model that can integrate with the LSP though - so it never generates LSP invalid code.
- skp1995 2y ago
  That's what we are doing at Aide (shameless plug since I work on Aide) I think using the LSP is not just a trivial task of grabbing definitions using the LSP, there is context management and the speed at which inference works. On top of it, we also have to grab similar snippets from the surrounding code (open files) so we generate code which belongs to your codebase. Lots of interesting challenges but its a really fun space to work on. https://aide.dev/ https://aide.dev/
samstave 2y ago
The Rstudio project Positron isnt quite the same - but its super dope: https://www.appsilon.com/post/introducing-positron https://www.appsilon.com/post/introducing-positron https://github.com/posit-dev/positron/blob/main/README.md https://github.com/posit-dev/positron/blob/main/README.md
WhyNotHugo 2y ago
> Keep in mind Cursor is just a fork of VSCode, with AI features that are pretty much just embedded extensions Sounds to me like Rabbit R1. A company picks up existing open source tools, builds their own extension/UI on top, and ship as something entirely new and novel. It'll grab a lot of attention short term, but others will quickly figure out how to make their own implementation that runs directly on the existing open source tools.

thomashop 2y ago

I agree with your general point, but there is already a bring-your-own-key and select your own model providers option in Cursor.

Zion1745 2y ago
The option you mentioned only works in the chat panel, not with other killer features that utilize the cursor.
- jadbox 2y ago
  Sadly they disable the Compose feature when using your own Claude key
anonzzzies 2y ago
They broke the openrouter integration though; it worked and now it does not anymore. Not sure if it was intentional or not, but it is a PITA.

iansinnott 2y ago

What alternative open source solutions are currently competing with it?

worldsayshi 2y ago
I've been using https://github.com/VictorTaelin/AI-scripts https://github.com/VictorTaelin/AI-scripts together with my own nvim plugin that I should publish soon-ish. Also there's https://github.com/yacineMTB/dingllm.nvim https://github.com/yacineMTB/dingllm.nvim which seems promising but quite wip.

thawab 2y ago

continue(yc) is an open source vscode extension. The best thing about cursor is their auto complete feature, their own fine-tuned model. It will be a while for others to build something close to it.

ode 2y ago
How much better is cursor than continue? I've been trying continue with codestral and am only moderately impressed so far.
- LoganDark 2y ago
  Not sure about continue, but I use Cursor for work, and it's really good at predicting simple operations. I rarely use it to actually generate code but it's pretty good at completing the code I'm already writing / the thing I'm already doing.
cellshade 2y ago
If you want to talk about in house autocomplete models, Supermaven has superior autocomplete, IMO.

kamaal 2y ago

>>Their product is great, but many users would prefer a bring-your-own-key & selecting their own model providers. On the contrary. Most enterprise users will prefer one package they can buy and not buy the thing piece wise. Big reason why VSCode won was because they were able to provide a lot of things out the box saving the user round trip through the config hell rabbit hole modern vim/emacs ecosystems are. If you want to sell developer tooling products, provide as much as possible out of the box. People want to solve their problems using your tool. Not fix/build problems/missing features in your tool.

rafaelmn 2y ago
A big reason copilot spread so fast is because people already trust GitHub with their code - enabling AI doesn't really modify risk. If GH wanted to break TOS and train on your code they could, even without copilot, if you're using GH for private repos. Any other third party needs to get vetted/trusted - I would be the first to doubt an AI startup.
- kamaal 2y ago
  As more and more people use co-pilot or even cursor, there is likely to be a mad increase in productivity. But also note, there is likely to be a situation like the early days of internet where people write lots of code, but also bug ridden and unreadable code. It will take a few years for things to return to routine.
  - rafaelmn 2y ago
    Meh - personally I see copilot as a mild boost/auto complete++ - helps me type out stuff that's obvious in context but needs to be typed out anyway. I've had it disabled when switching between environments and sometimes not notice for a day - depending on what I'm doing.
wyclif 2y ago
>saving the user round trip through the config hell rabbit hole modern vim/emacs ecosystems are That used to be a valid problem, but times have changed. For instance, Neovim has things now like kickstart.nvim and lazy.nvim that solve this problem. I've been test-driving LazyVim for the past month or so and I don't have to config anything anymore because the updates and plugins are sane choices.

GardenLetter27 2y ago

We really need a model that can integrate with the LSP though - so it never generates LSP invalid code.

skp1995 2y ago
That's what we are doing at Aide (shameless plug since I work on Aide) I think using the LSP is not just a trivial task of grabbing definitions using the LSP, there is context management and the speed at which inference works. On top of it, we also have to grab similar snippets from the surrounding code (open files) so we generate code which belongs to your codebase. Lots of interesting challenges but its a really fun space to work on. https://aide.dev/ https://aide.dev/

samstave 2y ago

The Rstudio project Positron isnt quite the same - but its super dope: https://www.appsilon.com/post/introducing-positron https://www.appsilon.com/post/introducing-positron https://github.com/posit-dev/positron/blob/main/README.md https://github.com/posit-dev/positron/blob/main/README.md

WhyNotHugo 2y ago

> Keep in mind Cursor is just a fork of VSCode, with AI features that are pretty much just embedded extensions Sounds to me like Rabbit R1. A company picks up existing open source tools, builds their own extension/UI on top, and ship as something entirely new and novel. It'll grab a lot of attention short term, but others will quickly figure out how to make their own implementation that runs directly on the existing open source tools.