Cursor vs Visual Studio Code

Cursor or Visual Studio Code: our take

Cursor is built as a fork of Visual Studio Code, so the two look and feel much alike, and your extensions, themes and keybindings carry over. VS Code is Microsoft's free editor: it supports almost every language through its extension marketplace, includes debugging, an integrated terminal, Git integration and IntelliSense, and offers strong remote development inside containers, over SSH or in WSL. GitHub Copilot integrates directly for AI help. Cursor is AI-first: it adds codebase-aware chat, multi-line autocomplete and an agent mode that plans and edits across many files, runs commands and iterates on errors, with a choice of several frontier models.

Pricing follows that split. VS Code is free. Cursor has a free Hobby plan with limited AI usage, and paid plans raise request limits and add team administration and privacy controls; heavy AI use needs a paid plan, and usage limits can change. That makes Cursor's real cost depend on how much you lean on its agent.

On platforms and openness, VS Code runs on Windows, macOS, Linux and the web via vscode.dev, and its core is published as the MIT-licensed Code - OSS project, although Microsoft's own builds add telemetry under a product licence. Cursor runs on Windows, macOS and Linux as a desktop app. Both can slow down when loaded with many extensions.

If you want a dependable, free editor and only occasional AI help, VS Code with an AI extension covers a lot. If you want the editor itself to take on multi-file changes and you are willing to pay for regular use, Cursor offers a deeper AI workflow without giving up the VS Code foundation. Trying Cursor costs little, since your setup moves over.