Cursor still wins on tab completion and codebase indexing. What changed is the owner and the bill: SpaceX bought it in August 2026, and since 12 October its pricing page sells it only inside The X Subscription, with Grok included and Claude, GPT and Gemini billed on top. OpenAI has said its models leave Cursor on 12 November. Check the date on any replacement too. Half of last year's open-source shortlist was acquired or archived in 2026.
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Stay on Cursor if Tab and the automatic codebase index are what you actually use all day, because no open-source editor has matched either one and the agent is not the part you would be replacing.
checked 2026-10-13 · Cursor is Sold as The X Subscription since 12 Oct 2026, bundled with Grok and X Premium: Free $0, Plus $8/mo (Grok models only), Premium $30/mo (4x Plus usage, cloud agents, Bugbot; third-party models at API list price on top), Super $100/mo (15x), Ultra $200/mo (50x). One weekly usage pool shared with Grok. Old Pro ($20) and Pro+ ($60) kept for existing subscribers until they switch. · by dan scutaru
better: A real free tier with 2,000 completions a month plus limited chat, a $10 Pro tier that costs a third of the $30 plan Cursor recommends to new users, and its completions run in JetBrains, Neovim, Visual Studio and Xcode. Cursor reaches JetBrains only as an agent, and its JetBrains docs list no Tab.
you give up: Multi-file agentic editing is clearly weaker than Composer. Your own keys and local models reach VS Code's chat only, never the completions. The free tier's completion cap is low enough that heavy users hit it.
better: Native Rust editor, GPL licensed, free with your own API keys or external agents like Claude Agent and Codex CLI, and it has run parallel agents since April 2026. Zed's own edit predictions need Pro at $10 a month; on the free plan you plug in Copilot or a local model.
you give up: It is not VS Code. Your extensions, keymaps and settings do not come with you, and the extension library is much smaller. Composer is still the more mature multi-file agent.
better: Holds a long task for hours rather than minutes, and it plugs into VS Code and JetBrains instead of replacing your editor.
you give up: No inline tab completion at all, which is the thing you would miss first. Claude models only, no local option, closed source.
better: Apache licensed agent for VS Code and the terminal, with JetBrains in early access. It points straight at Ollama or LM Studio and is free with your own API key. The agent loop is readable, which matters if you have to justify it.
you give up: No Tab-class autocomplete and no managed codebase index, so you hand-manage context. On frontier models the token bill passes a Cursor subscription fast, and a local model good enough to replace it wants a 24GB GPU or a large Apple Silicon machine.
better: MIT licensed, runs in VS Code, JetBrains and a CLI, takes no markup on inference, and published the migration path everyone used when Roo Code archived itself.
you give up: A fork of a fork, and its local-model support is less clearly documented than Cline's. Same missing pieces: no Tab model, no managed index.
better: MIT licensed, self-hostable on your own Kubernetes with an official Helm chart, runs agents in sandboxes, and runs unattended and headless. Cursor does not do that at any tier.
you give up: Not an editor at all. No autocomplete, no IDE, no inline anything. The setup is real work and you are running the infrastructure.
better: Git native. It commits each change itself, so undoing the agent is a revert. Apache licensed, editor agnostic, works against local models, and it runs anywhere a terminal does.
you give up: No autocomplete, no interface, no codebase index. One maintainer, and releases have gone quiet since February 2026, so check the repo before you build a habit on it.
better: Terminal first, with extensions for VS Code and JetBrains if you want them. Best in class on tasks that run for hours instead of seconds.
you give up: No tab completion, no local models, Claude models only, closed source. One vendor for everything.
better: Self-hosted and fully headless, so it fits a CI pipeline rather than an editor window.
you give up: You give up the editor loop. It has a web canvas for conversations with the agent, but no inline edits and no completions. This is a background worker, not a pair programmer.
Windsurf is the same editor under a new name: Cognition renamed it Devin Desktop on 2 June 2026, and its $20 Pro now includes Claude, GPT, Gemini and Grok in one quota, while Cursor's $30 Premium bills every model except Grok on top. Our full Windsurf vs Cursor comparison goes plan by plan.
Antigravity is the strongest free option right now. Google's free plan has unlimited Tab completions, agent use under unnumbered weekly limits, and Gemini, GPT-OSS-120b and Claude Sonnet 4.6 and Opus 4.6. Cursor's free plan has no Claude at all.
The catch: Google lists the Claude 4.6 models and GPT-OSS for removal on 2 November 2026, and Claude Sonnet 5.5 and Opus 5.5 need a paid, non-trial Google AI Pro plan.
If Tab is not what keeps you on Cursor, plain VS Code is the shortest move: Cursor imports its settings and extensions, and VS Code's chat takes Copilot Free, your own API key or a local model. Our full Cursor vs VS Code comparison covers what you give up.
Almost every big Cursor competitor belongs to a company with its own models or cloud to sell. Cursor is SpaceX's, and its cheapest plan runs Grok only. Copilot is GitHub's, so Microsoft's. Antigravity is Google's, Kiro is AWS's, Devin Desktop is Cognition's, and Claude Code and Codex come with Anthropic's and OpenAI's chat plans.
The neutral options are open-source agents like Cline, Kilo Code, OpenCode and Aider, which take almost any provider's key or a local model. You give up a managed index and a Tab model.
Yes, and several free plans now give you more than Cursor's: Antigravity and Devin Desktop both have unlimited Tab, and Copilot Free gives 2,000 completions a month. Cline, Kilo Code and OpenCode are free software, so you pay only for the model.
On price and reach, yes. Copilot Pro is $10 a month against Cursor's recommended $30 Premium, and its completions run in JetBrains, Visual Studio and Neovim as well as VS Code. On multi-file agent work Cursor's Composer is still the more mature tool.
It is a different bet. Kiro, from AWS, has you agree requirements, a design and a task list before it writes code, which pays off on big features and is overhead on a small fix. Pro is $20 for 1,000 credits; the free plan has 50.
If you work in the terminal, yes. OpenCode is free, MIT licensed and takes almost any provider's key or a local model. It is an agent, not an editor, so there is no Tab, and Claude Pro or Max logins are not supported.
Yes, with limited agent and chat requests that Cursor does not put a number on. Claude, GPT and Gemini are not on the free plan; they start with Premium at $30 a month and are billed on top. The full answer →