Cursor is cheaper at $8/mo, against $20/mo.
Anthropic's terminal coding agent
AI-first IDE, multi-file agent edits
They overlap more than they used to: both run subagents, MCP, hooks and skills, both have a CLI and cloud agents, and the Claude Code extension installs inside Cursor. The split is the editor and the meter. Cursor is an IDE that sells a monthly usage budget you can spend on its own Grok and Composer models or on Claude, GPT and Gemini. Claude Code is Anthropic's agent, included with Claude Pro and up, metered in five-hour windows on Anthropic models only.
| Attribute | Claude Code | Cursor |
|---|---|---|
| What you buy | An agent, included in a Claude subscription or billed per token on the API | An IDE with a monthly model usage budget, plus a CLI and cloud agents |
| Entry price | No free tier; Claude Pro, $20/mo or $17/mo billed annually | Free with limited Agent requests, then Plus at $8/mo |
| Higher individual plans | Max 5x $100/mo, Max 20x $200/mo | Premium $30/mo, Super $100/mo, Ultra $200/mo |
| Team seats | Team Standard $25/mo, Premium $125/mo ($20 and $100 billed annually) | Teams $30, $100 or $200 per seat/mo, matching the individual tiers |
| Default model | Opus 5.5 on Pro, Max, Team, Enterprise and the API | Auto picks a model per request; Cursor calls Grok 4.5 its flagship and Composer 2.5 its fast model |
| Model choice | Anthropic only: Opus 5.5, Sonnet 5.5, Fable 5.1 and Haiku | Grok 4.7, 4.6 and 4.5 and Composer 2.5 in the Cursor pool; Claude Opus 5.5, Sonnet 5.5, Fable 5.1, GPT-5.6 Sol, Terra and Luna, Gemini 3.1 Pro and others at API rates |
| Subagents | Yes: custom subagents in their own context, run in the background by default; agent teams experimental | Yes: built-in Explore, Bash and Browser subagents, custom ones in .cursor/agents, foreground or background, plus cloud subagents with /in-cloud |
| Rules and extensions | CLAUDE.md, .claude/rules, hooks, skills, plugins, MCP; /init imports .cursor/rules | .cursor/rules, AGENTS.md, user and team rules, hooks, skills, plugins, MCP |
| Where it runs | Terminal, VS Code and Cursor extension, JetBrains, desktop app, web, the Claude mobile app, Slack, GitHub Actions and GitLab CI/CD | Its own editor and Agents Window, a CLI, and cloud agents from the web, iOS, Slack, GitHub, Bitbucket, Linear and an API |
| Usage meter | Shared with Claude chat: a session limit that resets every 5 hours plus a weekly limit; usage credits or an API key beyond that | A weekly pool for Cursor models; third-party models at API list price from prepaid credit |
They overlap more than they used to: both run subagents, MCP, hooks and skills, both have a CLI and cloud agents, and the Claude Code extension installs inside Cursor. The split is the editor and the meter. Cursor is an IDE that sells a monthly usage budget you can spend on its own Grok and Composer models or on Claude, GPT and Gemini. Claude Code is Anthropic's agent, included with Claude Pro and up, metered in five-hour windows on Anthropic models only.
Cursor has the lower floor. The Free plan has limited Agent requests, and the first paid plan is Plus at $8/mo. Claude Code is not on Claude's Free plan and starts with Claude Pro at $20/mo, or $17/mo billed annually. Above that, Cursor sells Premium at $30/mo, Super at $100/mo and Ultra at $200/mo, and Claude sells Max 5x at $100/mo and Max 20x at $200/mo. For teams, Claude Team Standard costs $25 per seat billed monthly or $20 annually against $30/user/mo for Cursor's cheapest Teams seat, while the premium seats are close: $125/mo or $100 annually for Claude, $100/user/mo for Cursor. Cursor's own guidance is that daily agent users spend $60 to $100 a month in total usage and power users $200 or more.
Yes. Anthropic's Claude Code extension for VS Code has an install link for Cursor and also installs in other VS Code forks, and if an editor cannot install it, the CLI runs in the integrated terminal. Claude Code then bills to your Claude plan or API key, not to Cursor, while your Cursor plan still covers Tab, Cursor's own agent and Bugbot. Claude Code's /init command reads existing .cursor/rules and .cursorrules files when it generates CLAUDE.md, so a repo set up for Cursor carries over. The reverse works too: pick Claude Opus 5.5, Sonnet 5.5 or Fable 5.1 in Cursor's model picker and they bill at Anthropic's API list price on Premium and above, though Fable 5.1 needs data retention approval when Privacy Mode is on.
They meter differently. Claude Code shares limits with Claude chat: Pro and Max have a session limit that resets every five hours plus a weekly limit, Team seats draw from a per-seat allowance on the same rolling five-hour and weekly windows, Enterprise bills usage at API rates on top of the seat price, and usage credits let you keep going past the cap. An API key bills per token instead. Cursor meters a weekly pool: Plus, Premium, Super and Ultra include usage of Grok 4.7, Grok 4.6, Grok 4.5 and Composer 2.5, and Premium and above add third-party models charged at their API list price from prepaid credit. When the pool runs out you either buy additional usage, under a spending cap you set, or upgrade. Teams and Enterprise plans add a Cursor Token Rate of $0.25 per million tokens on third-party models.
Claude Code runs Anthropic models only: Opus 5.5 by default on Pro, Max, Team, Enterprise and the API, with Sonnet 5.5, Fable 5.1 and Haiku selectable. Cursor's Auto setting picks a model per request, or you choose one: Cursor's own Grok 4.7, 4.6 and 4.5 and Composer 2.5 draw on the weekly pool, and Claude Opus 5.5, Sonnet 5.5 and Fable 5.1, GPT-5.6 Sol, Terra and Luna, Gemini 3.1 Pro, Gemini 3.8 Flash, Muse Spark 1.3 and others bill at each provider's API list price. On Teams and Enterprise, Cursor Router routes Auto requests across GPT-5.5, Claude Opus 5, Grok 4.5 and Claude Fable 5.1. Neither tool runs local models.
Anthropic's terminal coding agent. It sits in the coding agents category, and ships in 4 tested stacks here.
AI-first IDE, multi-file agent edits. It sits in the ai ides category, and ships in 6 tested stacks here.
They are alternatives at the same step, so most stacks pick one or the other. No aistack.sh stack uses both today, though nothing prevents a custom workflow.
Beyond each other, Claude Code's closest alternatives are Codex. Cursor's closest alternatives are Codex.
