4 ms·
I was an early and passionate adopter and paying customer of Cursor (since 2023!), but it’s probably been 6 months since I opened it. These days I “write” code
by aroman 2mo ago
I was an early and passionate adopter and paying customer of Cursor (since 2023!), but it’s probably been 6 months since I opened it.
These days I “write” code with claude code and codex, and read/review it on GitHub. If I need to read it locally, I use a plain text editor.
Can someone help me understand what value cursor offers in 2026?
- Kiro 2mo agoThe way they spin up multiple Composer 2.5 before sending it over to the model of your choice is nice.
- kalaksi 2mo agoRecently they also seem to have made big changes that makes Cursor worse for editing code by hand. I'm not sure what they are trying to do, but it doesn't feel like vscode fork anymore. I'm starting to consider alternatives. To answer your question though, to me your workflow seems cumbersome. Cursor is more integrated and more frictionless.
- xixixao 2mo agoI felt the same, but I realized, that if you vibe code more, the changes make sense. Simple example: Should the AI sidebar be on the left, or on the right? At some point they swapped them automatically, which was jarring (maybe a bug). But now I realize that if I'm not the one primarily writing code and navigating it, then I prefer agents in the "primary" position on the left (esp. if I have the browser on the left half of the screen, the agents are in the middle). What annoys me the most about Cursor is the random stuff that breaks (due to its nature of VS Code fork). The tab experience is still unparalleled. The cost might be worse than Codex/Claude sub, but they are all much, much, much cheaper than API pricing, so depends on your POV.
- vorticalbox 2mo agoCursor has two “modes” agent and ide. In agent mode it’s horrible for editing files etc but better if you are juggling multiple chats
- redox99 2mo agoCursor has two benefits 1) It's still an IDE. Because of pricing I mostly use Codex, but I always have a VSCode/Cursor IDE open, thus have to juggle between the two. Working directly in the IDE is more comfortable. For full on vibecoding that might be worse, but when you want to do a deep review of the changes, an IDE is way better than reading a diff on github. 2) It supports every model. It's often very helpful to try different models when you don't like the result of the first.
- pwython 2mo agoCan't VS Code extensions solve your use case?
- redox99 2mo agoI tried the codex extension many months ago but I didn't like it. I use mostly the Codex App, or sometimes the Codex TUI inside the IDE terminal.
- roncesvalles 2mo agoThe Claude plugin for VSC is amazing and basically "solves programming" for me. It's the primary way that I write code now; I even stopped using Claude Code.
- RussianCow 2mo agoThey're not as good. I've tried all the options available a couple months ago, and none of them feel nearly as polished as Cursor. For one thing, Cursor Tab is just far better than any other "next edit" prediction I've used. I also happen to like their agent UI the most, but they don't support ACP, so you can't use it with Claude Code, which was a deal-breaker for me. These days I've switched to Zed, which is good enough (and wicked fast), but I still miss Cursor as an IDE.
- aaa_aaa 2mo agoYou can use Intellij Ides, at least free ones.
- leonvoss 2mo agoI don't think it offers any. I got tired of switching between Codex and Claude plus I wanted to start using glm and kimi so I switch to pi. Then I got tired of VSCode eating up battery and RAM so I moved to Neovim which has barely any efficiency downside anymore since most code is not written by hand and if you know how to use it well it was only maybe 10% less efficient than VSCode to begin with. I am not sure why a heavy desktop application would be better than nvim + pi in terminal which are both super extensible via vibecoding and very light on resources.
- urbsgpw 2mo agoHuh, never thought about that 2nd point - I'm also transitioning to pi, but didn't think to change to neovim as well. I guess your logic holds for claude code users as well though.
- LeBit 2mo agoHow do you diff ? Unless by "text editor" you mean Neovim or Emacs ?
- bakies 2mo agoSounds like on GitHub. That's how I do it too.
- throw1234567891 2mo agogit diff
- roncesvalles 2mo agoCursor Tab is nice when you're hand-editing stuff. Not sure it's worth $20 though. I'd totally buy and forget a $5 Cursor subscription just for Cursor Tab. The $20 price point is just too competitive now and I'd rather use the Claude/Codex plugin over Cursor's agentic coding sidebar.
- bnteke 2mo agocheap cursor tab on its own would be so nice
- brettgriffin 2mo agoLook at Cursor CLI: https://cursor.com/cli https://cursor.com/cli
- esafak 2mo agoDesign mode: https://cursor.com/blog/design-mode https://cursor.com/blog/design-mode
- joinjune 2mo agoIt removes money from your pocket into theirs faster than Claude will take money out of your pocket and into theirs. I was a Windsurf then Cursor user and even provided product feedback to the Cursor team on various aspects of their product but the costs for using it killed the value.
- ronsor 2mo ago> faster than Claude will take money out of your pocket and into theirs Damn, and I thought Anthropic was fast.
- dancemethis 2mo agoCode and reasoning generated by Opus/Fable via Cursor seems to be quite better than Claude Code's for the same prompt.
- teaearlgraycold 2mo agoI'm also confused about Cursor. I use Zed. It seems like whatever Cursor has is pure commodity and yet it's worth billions?
- jkukul 2mo agoYou can use Cursor CLI, it's a terminal agent, just like Claude Code and Codex. I use it sometimes, I haven't opened the actual Cursor IDE in ages. The potential benefit of Cursor CLI (vs CC and Codex) is that you can easily between all major models (by Anthropic, OpenAI, xAI, as well as Kimi K3 and GLM 5.2). I found it useful when reviewing work - e.g. I implement using Opus then review using Sol, etc. Models by different providers tend to have different perspective on things and they can find different issues with the code.
- teaearlgraycold 2mo agoZed lets you use Claude Code, Codex, OpenCode, etc. all through the same UI. Like you, I use that to cross validate using models from different providers and switch over to GLM 5.2 when I exceed my Claude Code limit.
- tzone 2mo agoI have tried multiple times to switch from Cursor to VSCode + command line tools or VSCode plugin for Claude, but it just doesn't work as well as Cursor itself. Especially if you are doing "remote" development through SSH. If you are doing stuff where you still have to write some parts of the code manually or you have to fix few things here and there that the AI outputs, you still need a real editor.
- nzxt210 2mo agoCursor in agent mode is the same thing as claude code and codex. And now Grok 4.5 included into subscription. It gives you more value, since grok is cheaper and faster version of the Opus.
- nzxt210 2mo agoI also want to believe that Cursor team working on harnesses for much longer then openAI and Anthropic can deliver better results overall. Claude code is being pretty much vibe-coded slop doesn’t give a feel of a good product.
- AussieWog93 2mo agoLook into the /stage-chapters skill for local review. It groups large edits logically into "chapters" (think individual Claude plan steps) that you can review one at a time, and it's local.
- eleventen 2mo agoI'm surprised that their biggest feature has not been mentioned: The permissions model is much less noisy in Cursor. Every 30 seconds in claude you get a new, elaborate, contrived bash command that claude wants to run. It's some combination of 10 things you've already granted permission for, but this one is new! Cursor's auto-review run mode fixes that https://cursor.com/docs/agent/security/run-modes https://cursor.com/docs/agent/security/run-modes I know it's a compromise in security, but auto-review+sandboxing provides a much nicer out-of-the-box experience. I'm happily using Cursor + Composer 2.5/Opus for most tasks.
- blehn 2mo agoEasily switching between models. Re: the local read/edit case, it's a bit more seamless than opening in a separate editor. That's about it.