I started using Cursor back in January and everything was good up until these last two weeks.
Recently, the wait times are completely absurd. I am waiting 2-5 minutes for a response every time I have to put in a new prompt, which is extremely frequent as the models are constantly doing stupid ■■■■ and need to be put back on track.
At this point in my project, where my codebase is 30,000 LOC and I’m trying to get AI to build integration and workflow testing, it takes 4-5 prompts to get good tests if I ever get anything good at all. Half the time it just wastes my time running around in circles creating circular tests which tell me nothing useful about my program.
Given the wait time between prompts, this means it can take me up to 20-30 minutes for a single problem. It’s totally unsustainable.
I’m sorry, but am I the only one who feels that Cursor must be intentionally slowing down the models to get people to pay for fast access? There’s no way the models went from being incredibly responsive to bogged down for minutes at a time in the span of a month.
I am a small business owner and cannot afford to pay for fast access or premium models, period. And I am no longer willing to wait on these models.
Hit me with Cursor alternatives. I’m done waiting.
what is the point of messages like this? do you expect that someone will give you a separate claude instance for free? dude, either you pay for the time-saving or do it yourself. it costs a tiny fraction of what it gives to you.
I spend around $80 a month on cursor. gives me more than what I pay. You can’t hire a developer for $20. pay and lose your broke mindset or if you can’t afford it you are not ready for this.
If you are unable to pay $20 a month which is cheaper than a standalone chat-gpt subscription as a small business owner, maybe you need to reflect on where some of your expenditure is going.
Are you saying you aren’t willing to pay the $20, or you aren’t willing to pay extra for Claude 3.7 Max and Gemini 2.5 Pro Max?
Either way, if you are a small business owner how are you able to afford not to pay and get the job done? I only use Cursor because the time it saves me means I’m actually getting my time back to do other things, its a bargain at $20.
I get that not everyone lives in a country with a decent salary, so $20 is more to people in some countries. But you’ve got 30k LOC, you obviously need it or you wouldn’t be building it. Can you afford to NOT pay $20? The fact you’d sit and wait 30 minutes for a single prompt give the impression your time doesn’t have much value, which I’m sure isn’t actually the case.
Just pay, or go, nobody is going to give you free use, or beg you to stay. As for the alternatives, they are obvious, mentioned often, and easy to find by asking any AI system - even one inside Cursor if you want!