Cursor vs Claude Code: Editor or Terminal Agent

Cursor's own pool has Grok 4.7, 4.6 and 4.5 and Composer 2.5, and Cursor calls Grok 4.7 its flagship. Claude, GPT, Gemini and Muse models are there too, at API prices. Hobby is free, Pro is $20 a month, Pro+ $60 and Ultra $200, and Teams is $40 or $120 a user. Each plan includes some usage, and anything past it is billed at API prices. Your own keys from OpenAI, Anthropic, Google, Azure OpenAI and Amazon Bedrock work for chat models. If you want to switch models freely, Cursor wins.

Claude Code is built for Claude's models, with Opus 5.5 as the default on paid plans. Pro is $20 a month ($17 billed yearly), Max is $100 or $200, and Team seats are $25 ($20 yearly). The free Claude plan doesn't include Claude Code. Limits reset every five hours, and paid plans have weekly caps too. It also works with an Anthropic API key, Amazon Bedrock, Google Cloud and Microsoft Foundry.

Cursor is a code editor, a fork of VS Code, with extensions from Open VSX. The Agents Window runs agents next to the editor: locally, in worktrees, over SSH or in the cloud. The Cursor CLI, `agent`, runs the same agent in a terminal and can hand a task off to a cloud agent.

Claude Code started in the terminal, and it doesn't replace your editor. Its extension works in VS Code and its forks, Cursor included, and its plugin works in JetBrains IDEs. The desktop app runs parallel sessions, locally, in the cloud or over SSH, and the web app lives at claude.ai/code.

The Agents Window runs agents in parallel, each in its own Git worktree if you like. Cloud agents run in isolated VMs, as many as you want at once, and you can start them from Slack, Microsoft Teams, Linear, Jira or a GitHub comment. Projects, in beta since September 2026, lets one coordinator agent hand work to others.

Claude Code has subagents with their own context, and background sessions through `claude agents`. Worktrees keep parallel work apart, and each cloud session runs on its own. Agent teams, where several sessions work together, are still experimental and off by default. You can start work from GitHub with @claude, or from Slack.

With Privacy Mode on, Cursor doesn't train on your data and has zero data retention deals with its model providers. With it off, Cursor can store your code and prompts and train on them. Privacy Mode is on by default for Enterprise teams. For personal plans, Cursor doesn't say. Requests go through Cursor's servers, even with your own API key. Cloud agents are the only feature that stores your code, and Cursor deletes it when the agent finishes.

On Free, Pro and Max, Anthropic trains on your data only if you turn the setting on. With it on, data is kept for 5 years. With it off, 30 days. Team, Enterprise and the API aren't used for training unless you opt in, and standard retention is 30 days. Here you at least know the default.