Claude Code vs Cursor
Claude Code (Anthropic) and Cursor (Anysphere (owned by SpaceX)) side by side on public data, as of Oct 6, 2026.
Claude Code has 4.5x the GitHub stars of Cursor (150K against 33.3K). Claude Code shipped 74 stable releases in the past 90 days.
Side-by-side numbers
| Metric | Claude Code | Cursor |
|---|---|---|
| Pulse Score | 80 | 71 |
| Overall rank | #3 | #8 |
| Downloads, last 7 days | 14.8M | — |
| Downloads, 7-day change | up 11.6% | — |
| Downloads, 30-day change | down 36.4% | — |
| VS Code installs | 27.1M | — |
| Marketplace rating | 3.7 / 5 (894) | — |
| GitHub stars | 150K | 33.3K |
| Homebrew installs, 30 days | 28.3K | 2,963 |
| Hacker News mentions, 30 days | 1,350 | 204 |
| Latest stable release | 2.1.290 · yesterday | — |
| Stable releases, 90 days | 74 | |
| Terminal-Bench (best run) | 57.9% · v4.0 | — |
| Price | $20/mo | Free + $20/mo |
| License | Proprietary | Proprietary |
| First released | February 2025 | March 2023 |
| Interfaces | CLI, IDE extension, Desktop, Web, Mobile, SDK | Desktop IDE, CLI, Web, Mobile, Slack, GitHub, Linear, API/SDK |
| Models | Anthropic Claude models via Claude plans, a Console API key or supported third-party cloud providers | Models from OpenAI, Anthropic, Google, SpaceXAI (Grok 4.7/4.6/4.5) and Meta (Muse Spark), plus Cursor's own Composer 2.5. |
Trends
Claude Code
Anthropic's agentic coding tool that reads a codebase, edits files and runs commands from the terminal, with VS Code and JetBrains integrations plus desktop, web and mobile access. It runs Claude models through a Claude subscription, an Anthropic Console API key or supported third-party cloud providers.
Pricing: Included in paid Claude plans: Pro $20/month ($17/month billed annually), Max from $100/month (5x and 20x tiers), Team standard seat $20/seat/month annual ($25 monthly) and premium seat $100 annual ($125 monthly). The Free plan does not include it; pay-as-you-go API credits via a Console account are an alternative.
Latest release 2.1.290:
- Added serverToolUses to the result of a mod's turn.step hook: the tool calls the API ran itself (the advisor), each with its id, name, input, start and end
- Added agentId to the tool.check event of plugin hooks, so a hook can tell a subagent's permission check from the main session's
- Added ceiling to the question and verdict a mod's tool.check hook reads, naming the approval an organization requires for a tool
- Added ThemeKey and Color types to the plugin hooks typings, so an editor lists the theme colors a mod's drawing can name
Cursor
AI coding editor and agent platform with a desktop app, a CLI, web and mobile agents, and cloud agents that run tasks in remote environments. It offers models from OpenAI, Anthropic, Google, SpaceXAI (Grok) and Meta alongside its own Composer models.
Pricing: Hobby is free; Pro $20/mo, Pro Plus $60/mo, Ultra $200/mo; Teams $40/user/mo (Standard) or $120/user/mo (Premium); Enterprise is custom; a Start plan for India costs INR 649/mo. Paid plans include usage pools billed at model API rates with on-demand overage.