Cursor or Claude Code? Two AI tools that solve the same problem in very different ways

This blog was built with AI by my side. When I brought it to life with Next.js last summer, that mostly meant autocomplete and a chat in the side panel. A little over a year later I barely write code line by line anymore. I describe what I want, read a diff and say yes or no.

Two tools dominate that way of working: Cursor and Claude Code. People often ask which one is "best", but that's a bit like asking whether a workshop or a craftsman is best. They attack the same problem from two different directions.

The short version

• Cursor is a code editor (a fork of VS Code) with AI built into everything. You sit in the editor and the agent works alongside you.

• Claude Code is an agent. It started in the terminal and now also runs in VS Code, JetBrains, a desktop app, the web and on your phone. You give it a task and it reads, changes and runs things in your project.

Or even shorter: Cursor is an editor with an agent inside. Claude Code is an agent that can live in your editor.

Cursor: the editor that became an agent platform

Cursor made its name with fast Tab completion and the ability to select code and ask for a change right there in the file. It feels like VS Code, only smarter, and all your extensions and keyboard shortcuts come along.

Since Cursor 2.0 (October 2025) the focus has shifted towards agents. You can run several agents in parallel, hand tasks off to cloud agents that work on their own machines, and let Bugbot review your pull requests. This autumn brought, among other things, Projects (a coordinating agent that splits up larger jobs), Cursor's own code hosting in the form of Origin, and the ability to reply to your local agents from the iPhone app.

The big news isn't a feature, though. In August 2026 Cursor became part of SpaceX, in a deal worth around $60 billion, and is now being integrated with SpaceXAI. Since 12 October, Cursor is sold as part of The X Subscription, a bundle that also includes Grok and X Premium. You can see it in the price list:

• Plus ($8/month) only gives you xAI's Grok models and Cursor's own Composer in Cursor, with no cloud agents or Bugbot.

• Premium ($30/month) and up unlocks cloud agents, code review and models from other providers (Claude, GPT, Gemini), but those are billed separately at API prices.

• Higher tiers: Super ($100) and Ultra ($200), plus Teams (from $30 per user per month) and Enterprise.

Cursor also has its own models, Composer. Composer 2 drew criticism this spring when it emerged that it was built on Chinese company Moonshot's open Kimi model, something that wasn't mentioned at launch.

After the acquisition, OpenAI announced it was pulling out of its partnership with Cursor, while Anthropic promised to keep supplying Claude models. So for now you can still pick Claude in Cursor, but which models you get now depends more on big-picture politics between AI companies than on what's technically best.

Claude Code: the agent that moved out of the terminal

Claude Code comes from Anthropic, the company behind the Claude models. The core idea is simple: you stand in a project, type claude and say what you want done. The agent reads the code, proposes a plan, edits files, runs tests and can create commits and pull requests.

What started as a terminal tool is now available almost everywhere:

• The terminal, still the most complete version.

• VS Code and JetBrains, with diffs right in the editor. The extension works in Cursor too.

• The desktop app, where you run several sessions side by side and review diffs visually.

• The web and the mobile app, where you start long-running tasks in the cloud and check the result later.

• Slack and GitHub, where you can tag Claude in a thread or have it review PRs.

Its strength is how much you can shape it. A CLAUDE.md in the project root tells Claude how the project fits together. Skills package workflows you repeat often, hooks run your own commands before or after the agent's steps, and MCP lets you plug in other tools and data sources. You can also schedule tasks, called routines, that run in the cloud even when your computer is off.

There's no separate price tag. Claude Code is included in Anthropic's regular subscriptions: Pro ($20/month, $17 billed annually) or Max (from $100/month) for individuals, and Team seats for companies ($25 per user per month, $20 billed annually). You can also run it against the API and pay per token. The models are Anthropic's own only (currently Fable 5.1, Opus 5.5, Sonnet 5.5 and Haiku 5.5), but on the other hand the tool is built specifically for them.

The real difference: who's at the wheel?

The feature lists are converging. Both have cloud agents, parallel sessions, PR review, Slack integration and mobile apps. The difference lies more in the default stance.

In Cursor, you drive. You have the code in front of you, the agent is a powerful tool in the toolbox, and it's easy to switch between writing yourself and letting the AI take over.

In Claude Code, the agent drives. You delegate a task, read the plan and review the result. It happily takes on bigger jobs that span many files, and it's as much at home in a CI pipeline or a Slack thread as in front of a screen.

So which one should you pick?

Pick Cursor if you like living in the editor, want fast autocomplete and like switching models depending on the task. It's also a good fit if you're coming from VS Code and don't want to relearn anything.

Pick Claude Code if you want to hand off whole tasks, work a lot in the terminal, or want to kick off a job from your phone and look at the result later. If you already have a Claude subscription, you get it thrown in.

Or use both. Plenty of people do exactly that: Cursor as the editor with the Claude Code extension inside. That gets you Tab completion from one and the agent from the other.

Personally, I think the most interesting thing isn't which tool wins, but how quickly the question has changed. A year ago it was about who suggested the best lines of code. Now it's about who you trust with the keys.