Anthropic's coding agent for the terminal, IDE, desktop app and web.
Coding Agentspaid
Claude Code vs Cursor for AI coding: which should you use?
Verdict: Pick by where you work: Claude Code is our #1 terminal coding agent and Cursor is our #1 AI IDE, so choose Claude Code if you live in the terminal and Cursor if you want the agent built into your editor.
Pick by use case
- Claude Code is #1 in “Best terminal/CLI coding agent”.
- Cursor is #1 in “Best AI IDE for vibe coding”.
- If you need a free start: Cursor (freemium).
| Feature | Claude Code | Cursor |
|---|---|---|
| Best StackRank rank | #1 in “Best terminal/CLI coding agent” | #1 in “Best AI IDE for vibe coding” |
| What it is | Anthropic's coding agent for the terminal, IDE, desktop app and web. | AI code editor built on a VS Code fork, with an agent mode. |
| Category | Coding Agents | AI IDEs |
| Pricing model | paid | freemium |
| Integrations | CLI, VSCode, JetBrains, Desktop, Web, MCP | IDE, MCP |
| Self-hostable | No / not listed | No / not listed |
| Open-source repo | — | — |
| Last verified | Oct 14, 2026 | Oct 14, 2026 |
Choose Claude Code if
you want a terminal-first agent that also runs in VS Code, JetBrains, a desktop app and the web with the same CLAUDE.md, settings and MCP servers, and you have (or will get) a paid Claude plan or a Console account. Claude Code has no free plan, and it also installs as an extension inside Cursor.
Choose Cursor if
you want a full AI code editor with the agent, a CLI and (from Premium) cloud agents from one vendor, and a $0 Free plan to start (limited agent requests). Note that Cursor's $8 Plus plan covers Grok models only. Third-party models such as Anthropic, OpenAI and Gemini are available from Premium ($30/mo) at API list price, billed separately by usage.
Try them
Updated Oct 14, 2026 · How we rank