The landscape of code editors is changing very rapidly.
When I started my coding journey, the recommended editor for HTML or C was Notepad++. A few months after, when I started learning Python, the recommended tech stack was Sublime or PyCharm. Few years later it was VS Code that took the huge piece of code editor’s cake and was the default, and probably the best choice for programming.
And here we are again, during AI revolution we witness a new wave of tools for coding, that are of course, AI focused.
Artificial intelligence is rewriting the rules of how we code.
Today, you are not just choosing between syntax highlighters and autocomplete features. You’re deciding between AI-powered coding assistants that can write entire functions, debug complex problems, and even refactor legacy code. Two tools leading this revolution are Cursor and Claude Code - both promising to transform how you write software.
Let’s compare the tools in different categories, so you can easily pick what will work the best for you.
Interface
Both tools are agentic tools, focusing on autonomous code creation.
Cursor interface is well known for everyone, as it was built on top of open source VS Code. Most functions of the editor are coming from Microsoft’s code editor, which makes it super easy to switch from one to another. Cursor is supporting the same flow of work, you can install exactly the same plugins and work the way you like.
The only other things are those related to working with AI. Cursor have another panel which allow you to pick LLM model and talk to it. It also introduces new way of inline completion, inline LLM chat and new settings windows.
Claude Code is a completely different tool. It’s even not a code editor, because you can’t actually edit code yourself inside. It’s fully CLI chat with LLM, allowing you to choose between a mode of planning code or actually implementing it.
Because of no code editing view, it feels like it was designed for vibe coding. Of course, you can still use other code editor (maybe cursor? ;)) to apply manual changes and monitor the overall code, but programmers were so used to working in fully integrated editors, that this feel very odd.
Actually this workflow with Claude Code remains me of old-style programming, with CLI tools only, VIM editor, compiling from console and having “C Programming Language” book by Kernighan & Ritchie.
AI support
Claude Code, as name suggest, is natively supporting only Claude models. You can work with other LLMs through custom MCP servers, but it’s definitely more problematic.
Cursor is more model agnostic, supporting all popular models with possibility to add own. It allows you to choose model before every AI request. It also supports auto model selection.
Is limited model support on Claude Code problematic? It can be. Claude 4 is one of the best model for coding and community seems to have consensus on that. Although still, there are few other great models which you may want to use. My distribution of claude 4 and gemini 2.5 usage is evenly distributed, but sometimes I also take advantage of gpt 4.1 or o3. With Claude Code that would be harder to do.
Pricing
As we’re so used to open-source coding tools, having paid plans may be shocking. Cursor has its own free plan, but it’s very limited and hard to use when you’re serious about coding with AI help.
Cursor plan starts with $20/month, and it includes unlimited tab completions and limited usage of agentic requests, which is estimated at ~225 Sonnet 4 requests, ~550 Gemini requests, or ~650 GPT 4.1 requests.
Claude Code allows running agentic requests using pricing plans same as on Claude chat interface. The basic plan starts with $20. I have not found any reliable estimates on how many requests it can serve, because it all depends on input and output tokens count.
Both tools are also supporting typical API pricing, where you pay just for tokens and don’t need to use a specific plan.
To be honest, both pricing plans are disappointing.
When I purchased Cursor it was providing 500 agentic requests per month for typical models. Then it announced that requests are unlimited and community gone wild. Unfortunately, it turned out that number of requests it’s even more limited than before.
With Claude Code it’s hard to understand how many requests you can do, so there is a chance you will get out of credits, especially when you also use the same account on web interface.
Of course, you can also use API-based usage, which is the most “fair”, but… it’s harder mentally. If you how coding with AI consume your money, you can be much more careful and use AI less. On the hand it’s good, because you still code yourself with AI only helping, but on the other hand AI in the growth phase, and it requires us to run a lot of tests, try out new things etc.
Workflow modes
Cursor integrates AI into traditional coding workflows, while Claude Code takes a more autonomous, task-delegation approach
Cursor support modes: agent, ask, manual.
Agentic mode allows AI to autonomously explore your codebase, edit multiple files, run commands, and fix errors to complete your requests.
Ask is more read-only mode, where you can chat with LLM with no automatic code applying. In this mode LLM are also suggesting ready to implement code changes, which you can manually apply.
In manual mode AI agent is not browsing any file, and can work only with those selected by user.
In Claude Code you have planning mode and agentic (implementation).
When it comes to modes, I definitely prefer Claude Code functionality, because it’s much more like you would work with a regular developer. Firstly you can discuss implementation plan, think about the project and context with no need to write any code. It’s a good coding practice to think before you start doing. Once you’re ready, you can start implementing it.
Cursor is way harder to work in “planning” mode. It’s very hard to convince AI agent to DON’T write any code, just plan it so as we can settle if that’s really what developer wanted to achieve. Even in Ask mode the code is created and there is not much real planning.
Cursor in agentic mode is also very “eager” in running your code or other tools. Once it created a loop without proper break which was calling AI API. It started consuming credits with no way to escape the loop, and it was not that easy to stop. And I didn’t ask about running it, he decided to run it anyway.
What coding tool I should use?
There is no easy answer, especially that both tools are still evolving and changing a lot. I strongly recommend checking both tools. You can do it for free with Cursor test plan and by depositing $5 of credits for Anthropic API. You can use those credits with typical API integration, so even if you won’t like Claude Code, you can still utilize credits for other projects.
If you want to do vibe coding, Claude Code seems to be a better solution for now. It’s agentic possibilities looks more promising, the decisions seem to be more accurate. I do appreciate using planning mode, which increases chances of getting what I need to get. Claude Code is also better at handling few agents simultaneously.
For more typical development, when you don’t vibe code but use AI only as your helpful pair programmer that can boilerplate code faster and better than you, I think Cursor for now is the way to go. The seamless switch from VS Code and access for all LLMs in single place is great. I feel much more control over AI assisted coding in Cursor.
The possible solution to combine both is to have Claude Code running as plugin in the tab inside Cursor or VS Code. This way you can have both at your hand and use whatever is best at the moment.
Claude Code also has one more flaw for Windows users - it’s not working on this platform natively. You have to use WSL to make it work, which can be more problematic.
Summary
As we’re in the phase of ultra rapid growth of AI tools, like always the best what you can do is to test out both tools. Or even have them both configured and ready to go. If something changes and one will outperform the other, you’ll be ready to switch.
Thanks for reading!
Kamil Kwapisz