Cursor

What is Cursor?

Cursor takes the VS Code you already know and adds a deeply integrated AI assistant. Because it is a fork of VS Code, your keybindings, extensions and settings mostly carry over, which made the switch nearly painless for millions of developers. The difference is that the AI is not a sidebar afterthought: it is woven into completion, editing, chat and even a full agent mode.

The magic ingredient is codebase awareness. Cursor indexes your entire project, so when you ask a question or request a change, the model can look at the actual code that matters instead of guessing. That context turns vague prompts like 'fix the login flow' into precise edits across several files.

Anysphere, the company behind Cursor, was founded in 2022 and shipped the editor in 2023. It grew from a niche tool into a mainstream choice for solo developers and startups, and it is often credited with pushing the whole industry toward AI-native editing.

Key Features

• Tab completion that predicts multi-line edits using your whole codebase
• Chat panel with Apply, which turns AI suggestions into real file edits
• Agent mode that plans and executes multi-step tasks across files
• Codebase indexing for accurate, project-aware answers
• VS Code extension and settings compatibility
• Composer for multi-file editing sessions
• Built-in model selection, including Claude, GPT and in-house models

How to get started

Download Cursor from the official site and install it like any desktop app. On first launch you can import your VS Code settings and extensions, which makes the move feel instant. Open a project, let the indexer finish, then try Tab completion and ask a question in the chat panel to feel the difference.

• Download and install Cursor
• Import your VS Code settings and extensions
• Open a project and let codebase indexing finish
• Try Tab completion on your next edit
• Ask the chat or agent to make a change and review the diff

Use cases

• Everyday coding with AI-assisted completion and refactoring
• Onboarding to an unfamiliar codebase by asking questions about it
• Generating boilerplate, tests and documentation
• Multi-file refactors executed by agent mode
• Learning new frameworks by having the AI explain and apply patterns

Pricing and licensing

Cursor is proprietary and uses a freemium model. The free Hobby plan gives you a limited number of AI requests per month, which is enough to try the workflow, while Pro and Ultra plans raise or remove the limits and unlock the strongest models and features. Pricing is per user per month, billed monthly or annually.

The editor itself is free to use even without AI requests, so you can keep working with it like a normal VS Code fork. Check the official site for current plan limits and prices, since they change as the product evolves.

Pros and cons

Cursor's strengths are integration and speed. Because the AI has real access to your code, suggestions are far more relevant than paste-into-chat workflows, and the fork means almost no learning curve if you come from VS Code. For many developers the daily workflow genuinely gets faster.

The trade-offs are privacy and control. Code is sent to AI providers for processing unless you configure local or enterprise options, and the product moves fast, so features and pricing shift more often than traditional editors. Some teams also prefer fully open-source tools they can audit.

Alternatives

• VS Code with GitHub Copilot: free editor plus the original AI pair programmer
• Windsurf: agentic AI editor from Cognition AI
• Zed: fast Rust-based editor with built-in AI
• JetBrains IDEs with AI Assistant: mature refactoring plus AI
• Continue: open-source AI assistant extension for VS Code and JetBrains