Been a heavy Cursor user for over a year, usually spending $2k–$5k/month. Built a bunch of stuff with it, ML models for predicting ad clicks, and an ad server hitting open bids in <20ms.
Switched to Claude Code Max for $200/month and honestly I’m using it more than Cursor while getting the same output. Cursor’s UI is nicer, but not “worth thousands a month” nicer.
I’d genuinely like to hear other people’s opinions on this and if anyone from Cursor is here, I’d also be interested to understand why the pricing is so much more expensive vs claude code max plan. If only we could route our claude max plan into cursor api..
same for me, ui not worth hundreds. switched to claude code+zed editor (hate claude ui)
works fine also there is live conversation when agent is douing something. so i can tell him and there is no interruption of process.
cursor is too expensive. i am consuming 50% of ultra per week on sonnet 4.5, but with claude i can use opus 4.5 with extra high context window on max plan without any problems.
actually the only problem that it is not saving conversation history, but ive made some sort of memory and workflow system, so it not bothers me. i am working on claude max subscription - works flawless and i havent seen any summarization lags where cursor stucks on summarizing for a 20+ seconds. so yes i like zed - its really fast (works on vulkan) and there is no ui b.sht improvements. looks like classic cursor 1.7 or so.
There is a clear difference between Cursor and Claude Code pricing. Claude Code is usage-based, meaning you don’t always know how many tokens you’ll spend. Cursor, however, uses API-based pricing where a $200 investment can get you $400 in value plus usage bonuses.
Beyond price, it’s about the UX.
Cursor is an IDE-based tool for people who want to review and compare code visually.
It has a built-in browser for live UI edits
since it’s based on VS Code, you can use your existing extensions,
API Compatible for adding other models like GLM and MiniMax.
It really comes down to whether you prefer a CLI or a full IDE.
for $200 on claude i can get max 20x - it means i can use frontier models without any restrictions. now i am using opus 4.6 on every task and can’t even reach 30% of the 5h limit until it resets. with the ultra plan i could spend around $200-300 on the same model per day. so you can’t even closely compare cursor with claude pricing. i must admit that claude ide is not as good as cursor but i am using zed ide instead. it works with vulkan under the hood and it’s razor fast in comparison with cursor. so for now there is no reason to stay with cursor, at least for now
Cursor is a middleman like openrouter, they just provide a means to an end while taking a cut of the spendings.
IMO its always best to have a direct contract with the seller rather than resellers. You get a better deal and dedicated service.
Take yourself two years back - would you even pay for a super unstable vscode fork that generates slop charging you hundred and thousands of dollars? Absolute no!