I’ve been a Cursor fanboy for a while. After trying GitHub Copilot, Windsurf and even JetBrains AI, I was convinced this was the killer AI coding tool (and its skyrocketing ARR seemed to confirm my feelings).
cursor ARR via Sacra
But Claude Code deserves a special mention.
I don’t know why I dismissed it initially. Perhaps because Cursor + Claude 3.5 sonnet was such a punchy combo and an IDE (remember, Cursor is a vscode fork) seemed a superior UX to a CLI.
Boy, was I wrong.
The ‘aha’ moment arrived unexpectedly. I found myself needing a quick piece of code generated, something simple that didn’t warrant the full context-switching of jumping into my IDE. Almost on a whim, I remembered some friends raving about Claude Code.
I installed the npm package, typed claude and hit enter. There was no loading screen, no complex setup wizard – just an instant prompt waiting for me. It felt incredibly direct, low-friction. Boom. Suddenly, arguably the most capable coding agent out there was sitting right there in my familiar terminal window, ready to go.
Oh and the customization is so simple. Just drop your favorite in the .claude/commands folder and they’ll be ready as slash commands the next time you run the tool.
The most surprising aspect though is how well-crafted and efficient is the experience in the terminal. Claude Code delivers an experience so focused, so efficient, that it breathes new life into the terminal. It strips away the visual noise and interaction paradigms of a GUI, focusing purely on the conversation, the input, the output. It’s a pure, direct line to the AI’s capabilities, making complex tasks feel simple and fast.
While I won’t cancel my Cursor subscription, I’ll be spawning Claude agents alongside my standard AI-assisted coding in Cursor. It’s not about choosing one tool over the other; it’s about intelligently composing their strengths. The future of coding isn’t about a single perfect AI tool, but about a flexible ecosystem where powerful, focused agents can be invoked exactly when and where you need them, augmenting your abilities in surprising and delightful ways.