Cursor

Why I Switched

I’d been on VS Code + Copilot for two years. Switching to Cursor was supposed to be a 1-week experiment. Three months later, I haven’t gone back, and neither have any of the engineers I work with.

The single feature that did it: multi-file edits via Cmd-K and Composer. Copilot autocompletes line-by-line; Cursor writes a whole feature across 5 files, runs the tests, and fixes the failures. That’s a different category of tool.

What Cursor Gets Right

1. Composer / Agent mode. Describe what you want, point at relevant files, and let it run. It’s the closest thing to having a junior engineer in the editor.
2. Codebase indexing. Ask “where do we handle Stripe webhooks” and it actually answers, with file paths.
3. Tab completion that knows your codebase. Suggests imports from your own modules, not just stdlib.
4. Familiar UX. It’s a VS Code fork — every extension and keybinding works.

What’s Not Great

• Token costs add up. Heavy users on the $20 Pro plan can hit limits mid-month and need to top up.
• Privacy concerns for some shops. Code is sent to the cloud. The privacy mode helps but isn’t bulletproof.
• Locked into Cursor’s choice of models. You don’t get to pick freely between providers.

Cursor vs Copilot vs Claude Code

For most working engineers in 2026, Cursor + Claude Code is the winning combo: Cursor for in-editor work, Claude Code for the bigger autonomous tasks you fire off in a terminal.

Should You Pay for It?

If you write code professionally, yes. The $20/mo Pro tier pays for itself the first time it nails a multi-file refactor in under a minute. If you’re a hobbyist or student, the free tier is enough to learn the workflow.

Methodology

I used Cursor as my primary editor for 3 months across two production codebases (one Next.js, one Go) totaling ~120k LOC. I tracked time-to-completion on 18 standard tasks (bug fixes, feature additions, refactors) against my prior 2 years of VS Code + Copilot baseline.