What is Cursor?
Cursor has rapidly become the favourite editor of AI-forward developers. Unlike GitHub Copilot (a plugin), Cursor is a standalone editor forked from VS Code that puts AI at the centre of everything. The 'Composer' feature lets you describe a multi-file change in plain English and Cursor writes it — including creating new files and modifying existing ones. It has access to your full codebase for context. The free Hobby tier gives limited Agent requests to try it out. Individual plans now split into three tiers: Pro at $20/month, Pro+ at $60/month (roughly 3x Pro's usage), and Ultra at $200/month (roughly 20x Pro's usage with priority access to new features) — all with a 20% discount on annual billing. Teams pricing starts at $40/user/month. Many developers report writing 2-3x faster with Cursor compared to standard Copilot.
Pros & Cons
What works well
- Full codebase context for accurate suggestions
- Composer writes multi-file changes from descriptions
- VS Code familiar — imports your extensions and keybindings
- Inline chat and edit directly in the editor
- Supports multiple frontier AI models (OpenAI, Anthropic, and others)
Things to know
- Pro plan needed for fast, reliable responses
- Occasional hallucinations on complex refactoring
- Separate app from VS Code (migration step required)
What people use Cursor for
- Writing new features from scratch
- Refactoring large codebases
- Onboarding to unfamiliar repositories
- Debugging complex issues
- Pair programming with AI
Pricing
Free Hobby tier with limited Agent requests. Pro $20/month, Pro+ $60/month (~3x usage), Ultra $200/month (~20x usage) — 20% off annually. Teams from $40/user/month.
See current pricing