alt Hacker NewsSo it has converged to the same UI/UX as the Claude/Codex desktop apps. If that's the case, why use Cursor over those more canonical apps?
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For $20 a month, I can plan and implements a couple features in 4 hours with Claude. Then I have to wait.
For $20 a month, I can plan and implement thousands of features using Composer 2 or Auto with Cursor. The usage limits are insanely higher. Yes, the depth of understanding is not Opus 4.6, but most work doesn't need that. And the work that does need it I pass to Claude.
I can code 8 hours a day using LLMs as my primary driver spending just $40 a month.
Computer use in the cloud is the main reason I use them. It's a game changer. It has its own dev env with a browser / shell and can test what it wrote (a bit of a hassle to set it up, but when it's working, wow)
Brand recognition. Since "model-is-the-service", various previously-interesting companies become thin API resellers and the moat is between "selling a dollar for fifty cents" and Brand awareness.
I am not saying this in bad faith. Model companies cannot penetrate every niche with the same brand recognition as some other companies you would consider as "API resellers" do.
I kinda quit using it. The tab feature is useful when making minor or mundane changes, but I quite prefer the codex GUI if I am going to be relatively hands off with agents.
I won’t, but it does have a couple features Codex lags, including remote SSH (huge, because the easiest way to sandbox your agent is to put it into a VM), and the ability to kicking things of on your mobile and finishing up on your desktop (again, really nice if you get a good idea out on a walk, or while talking to a colleague.
These are features I am sure Codex will soon have, of course.
Then there is the advantage of multiple models: run a top level agent with an expensive model, that then kicks of other models that are less expensive - you can do this in Claude Code already (I believe), but obviously here you are limited to something like Haiku.
1. Cursor is multi-model, meaning you can use at least a dozen different models.
2. Cursor's UI allows you to edit files, and even have the good old auto-complete when editing code.
3. Cursor's VSCode-based IDE is still around! I still love using it daily.
4. Cursor also has a CLI.
5. Perhaps more importantly, Cursor has a Cloud platform product with automations, extremely long-lived agents and lots of other features to dispatch agents to work on different things at the same time.
Disclaimer: I'm a product engineer at Cursor!