Cursor is an AI-native code editor built on a fork of Visual Studio Code, making it immediately familiar to the tens of millions of developers already using VS Code. Unlike GitHub Copilot which adds AI to your existing editor, Cursor makes AI the foundation of the entire editing experience — with multi-file editing, codebase-wide context, and agent mode built in from the ground up.
Plans: Hobby (free, limited daily completions, 2-week Pro trial), Pro ($20/month, unlimited completions, 500 premium model requests per month, agent mode), Business ($40/user/month, team features, SSO, centralized billing). As of early 2026, Cursor switched to a credit-based system for premium model requests — different models (GPT-5.4, Claude Sonnet, Gemini) burn credits at different rates.
Cursor's headline features are Composer (multi-file editing from a single prompt), Agent mode with subagents that work in parallel, Background agents for async tasks, Plan mode for drafting strategies before execution, and deep codebase indexing with shared team indices. In benchmark testing, Cursor completes tasks 30% faster than GitHub Copilot, though Copilot solves a slightly higher percentage of SWE-bench tasks at half the price.
The main tradeoff is editor lock-in — Cursor requires abandoning your current IDE (unless you're in VS Code, where the transition is nearly seamless). For JetBrains users, GitHub Copilot remains the more practical choice.
