📅 Last updated: April 2026
✍️ Written by Stewie, Frontend & UI Tools Editor at AiToolRadar
Overview
Cursor is a fork of VS Code with deeply integrated AI that understands your entire codebase — not just the current file. Ask it to fix bugs, write features, or explain code in plain English. The tab completion, multi-line edits, and Composer agent mode set it clearly apart from GitHub Copilot.
My Experience with Cursor
I've been using Cursor as my primary editor for over a year, and I want to give you the honest take — not the marketing copy. The short version: it's the most impactful developer tool I've adopted since switching to TypeScript. But it has real limitations that nobody talks about enough.
It's a VS Code fork, not a plugin — and that matters
This is the first thing people misunderstand. Cursor isn't a VS Code extension. It's a full fork of VS Code with AI baked into the editor at a much deeper level than any extension can reach. That means the AI has direct access to the file tree, your open tabs, your terminal output, your test results — without any copy-paste or context management on your part. When I switched from Copilot, that architectural difference was immediately obvious.
Three modes, three different workflows: Composer, Chat, and Inline Edit
Cursor has three interaction modes and knowing when to use each one saves you a lot of friction. Inline edit (Cmd+K) is for surgical changes — rename this variable, fix this function signature, rewrite this loop more idiomatically. Fast, scoped, low risk. I use it dozens of times a day. Chat (Ctrl+L) is your codebase-aware assistant. You can ask "why is this component re-rendering on every keystroke?" and it reads the relevant files to answer. It's also where I go when I need to understand an unfamiliar codebase quickly. Composer is the heavy artillery. You describe a feature in plain English — "add a dark mode toggle that persists to localStorage and applies a data-theme attribute to the root element" — and Composer opens a diff view spanning every file it needs to touch. It's genuinely impressive, and genuinely requires review before you hit accept.
The @ symbol system changes how you think about context
Type @ anywhere in Chat or Composer and you get a context menu that's more powerful than it looks. @file pins a specific file into the context window. @codebase tells Cursor to search across your entire project for relevant code — this is what makes it feel like the AI actually knows your project rather than guessing. @docs lets you point it at official documentation (React docs, Tailwind docs, your own internal docs) and have it answer questions against them. @web gives it live search access for things like "what's the current syntax for the new Next.js app router?" I use @codebase constantly when refactoring — it finds all the places a pattern is used without me having to grep.
Cursor Rules: the feature most people sleep on
Create a .cursorrules file in your project root and Cursor reads it as a system prompt for every interaction in that project. I use this to encode things like: "this project uses Tailwind v4, not v3 — don't use the old config syntax", "all API routes must include Zod validation", "we use React Query for server state, not useEffect + fetch". Without this file, Cursor gives you generic best-practice code. With it, you get code that fits your stack and conventions from the first suggestion. This is the single highest-leverage customization available and most developers don't set it up.
Agent mode: where it gets genuinely autonomous
Agent mode (inside Composer) is where Cursor crosses from "AI assistant" into something closer to a junior developer you can delegate to. It can run your test suite, read the failure output, diagnose the cause, edit the relevant files, and run tests again — without you touching anything. I've had it fix flaky TypeScript errors across eight files in a single session. Does it always succeed? No. Does it sometimes make things worse? Yes. But the workflow of "run this, fix what breaks, show me the diff" is real and it works more often than not. I treat it like a capable intern: assign real tasks, expect to review the work, don't rubber-stamp anything.
Cursor vs GitHub Copilot: agentic vs autocomplete
I used Copilot for two years before switching. The honest comparison: Copilot is excellent autocomplete that occasionally writes a whole function for you. It's lightweight, it integrates into JetBrains, and the enterprise security story is more mature. Cursor is a different category of tool. It's not better autocomplete — it's an AI that participates in your development workflow. If you're happy with "AI suggests the next line," Copilot is fine and cheaper ($10/mo on the individual plan). If you want "AI helps me ship this feature," Cursor is the right choice. I use both models in my head: Copilot for quick scripts in a text editor, Cursor for everything where I'm working on a real codebase.
Honest weaknesses
I said I'd be honest, so here it is. Cursor can be noticeably slow on large monorepos — the indexing is good but not instant, and on a repo with 200k+ lines the context retrieval sometimes lags. It also has a tendency to over-edit: you ask it to fix one function and it "helpfully" refactors three adjacent ones you didn't ask about. Always read the full diff, not just the first hunk. And the free tier is genuinely too limited for daily professional use — 50 slow requests a month is gone in a morning of serious work.
Is Cursor Pro ($20/mo) worth it?
Yes, without hesitation, if you write code professionally. The free tier is fine to evaluate for a week and confirm it fits your workflow. For full-time development it's not enough — you'll hit the limit on a busy day. At $20/mo it's cheaper than one hour of your time, and if it saves you even 30 minutes a week it's paying for itself. The model selection on Pro (fast Claude Sonnet, GPT-4o) is also meaningfully better than the slow fallback models on the free plan. Teams pay $40/user/mo which is steeper, but the centralised billing and usage controls make sense for larger orgs.
Where it shines: TypeScript/React and Python
Cursor works across languages but it's noticeably strongest with TypeScript/React and Python. Both have huge training data representation and strong type systems that give the model useful structure to reason about. In TypeScript, Cursor's ability to trace types across files and correctly thread generics through a refactor is genuinely impressive. In Python, it handles data transformation pipelines, async patterns, and pandas/numpy idioms very well. I've used it on Go and Rust codebases with decent results, but the quality drops a notch. If your primary stack is TypeScript or Python, the experience is close to magical.
Pricing
✅ When to use
- Full-stack feature development across multiple files simultaneously
- Refactoring existing codebases — it reads and understands full context
- Debugging complex issues — it reads the error and proposes the fix
- Learning a new framework or codebase quickly
- Writing boilerplate and repetitive code faster
❌ When NOT to use
- Simple one-file scripts — GitHub Copilot in VS Code is lighter-weight
- JetBrains IDE users (IntelliJ, PyCharm) — Cursor is VS Code only
- Security-sensitive environments where code cannot leave the machine
💡 Personal Tips
Cursor is the single tool that has most improved my development speed. Cmd+K for inline edits and Ctrl+L for full codebase chat are the core shortcuts. Composer mode for multi-file edits is where the real magic happens — describe a feature in plain English and it writes across 5 files simultaneously. Important caveat: review every suggestion before accepting. It's confident even when wrong. I use it with Claude Sonnet as the backend — noticeably better than GPT-4 for code.
Alternatives
FAQ
Is Cursor free?
Cursor has a free Hobby plan with 2,000 code completions and 50 slow premium requests per month. The Pro plan ($20/mo) gives unlimited completions and 500 fast premium requests. Teams pay $40/user/mo.
What makes Cursor different from GitHub Copilot?
Cursor reads your entire codebase for context, edits multiple files simultaneously, and can autonomously apply changes across a project. Copilot provides completions and chat within your existing IDE. Cursor is more capable for complex, large-scale tasks; Copilot is cheaper and works in JetBrains IDEs.
Which AI model does Cursor use?
Cursor supports multiple models including Claude Sonnet, GPT-4o, and its own custom model. You can switch between models in settings depending on your task — Claude is often preferred for complex refactoring.
Is Cursor good for beginners?
Cursor has a learning curve but its autocomplete works immediately. Beginners benefit from its ability to generate entire functions and files from natural language descriptions, making it useful even without deep coding knowledge. That said, I'd recommend having at least a basic understanding of the language you're working in — accepting AI suggestions without being able to read them is risky regardless of the tool.
What is a .cursorrules file and should I use one?
A .cursorrules file in your project root acts as a persistent system prompt for every Cursor interaction in that project. You use it to encode your stack, conventions, naming rules, and any constraints the AI should follow. For example: "use Zod for all input validation", "prefer named exports over default exports", "this project targets Node 20". I consider it mandatory for any non-trivial project — without it, Cursor gives generic answers; with it, suggestions match your actual codebase.
Does Cursor send my code to external servers?
Yes — your code is sent to AI model providers (Anthropic, OpenAI) to generate responses. Cursor has a Privacy Mode that prevents them from using your code for training, and a Business plan with stronger data agreements. If you're working on a highly sensitive or proprietary codebase, check their privacy policy and your organisation's data policies before adopting it. For most commercial development work it's fine; for government or regulated sectors, the Business tier or a self-hosted alternative may be required.
What's the difference between Composer and Chat in Cursor?
Chat (Ctrl+L) is conversational — you ask questions, get explanations, and can apply individual suggestions. It's great for understanding code and making targeted changes. Composer is task-oriented — you describe what you want built or changed, and Cursor plans and executes edits across multiple files, showing you a unified diff to review and accept. Use Chat for dialogue, use Composer for delegation. Most of my productivity gains come from Composer, but Chat is where I spend time debugging and understanding unfamiliar code.
Can Cursor work with large monorepos?
It can, but with caveats. Cursor indexes your codebase locally for semantic search, and on very large repos (200k+ lines) that indexing can be slow and the context retrieval occasionally misses relevant files. I've used it on repos in that range and it's still useful — just not as seamlessly fast as on a medium-sized project. The @file and @codebase commands help you be explicit about what context to include when the automatic retrieval falls short.