A Month with Cursor and Claude-Dev: My Thoughts

I’ve been using two new tools recently- Cursor and Claude-Dev -both of which have been getting a fair bit of attention in the developer community. They’re each built to make coding faster and more intuitive through AI-powered assistance, but they take different approaches and have their own strengths and weaknesses. After using both for about a month, I thought it was time to sit down and reflect on where they shine and where they still need some work.

Let’s start with Cursor.

Cursor: Familiar but Faster

Cursor is a fork of VSCode, which, if you’re already a VSCode user like I am, makes it very easy to slip into. I didn’t need to rebuild my environment from scratch or deal with setting up keybindings. Everything that worked in VSCode worked in Cursor right out of the box-my extensions, settings, and keymappings carried over without a hitch. The transition was almost invisible, except for one key difference: the AI autocomplete is much faster. In fact, in my experience, it’s around 10 times faster than GitHub Copilot.

Now, “10 times faster” isn’t a number I pulled from benchmarks-it’s just what it feels like after using it for a while. When you’re typing code, and Cursor is predicting your next move, it doesn’t feel like the AI is lagging behind or playing catch-up. Instead, it’s right there with you, which helps keep you in flow. I was surprised at how much more productive I felt when I wasn’t waiting for Copilot to catch up or pressing tab three times just to get the suggestion I wanted.

Cursor also has a nice feature where it embeds and indexes your entire project, making it easier to understand the relationships between files. When you update a file, the index gets updated too, which means the AI has a better grasp of how the pieces of your codebase fit together. This is useful if you’re working across a large codebase with multiple files that depend on each other.

The Drawbacks

That said, some of the best features in Cursor are gated behind a subscription. I’m generally not opposed to paying for tools that add real value, but in this case, I was a little disappointed that the most interesting AI features-like the multi-file editing-were part of the premium version. For a tool that’s still fairly new, I wonder if gating these features too early might limit its adoption, especially given how many developers are already paying for GitHub Copilot.

Another issue I’ve run into with Cursor is that while it’s great at fast, small tasks, it lacks some of the flexibility I need when working with more complex problems. It’s excellent for quick code suggestions and refactoring, but when I needed something that could handle more involved tasks, like reading logs or executing build commands, I found myself looking for something else.

Claude-Dev: The Open-Source Underdog

That’s where Claude-Dev (now called Cline) comes in. Claude-Dev is an open-source extension for VSCode, and while it doesn’t have the same level of polish as Cursor, it’s rapidly evolving-and in some ways, it’s more powerful. The most striking thing about Claude-Dev is that it feels like it’s trying to do more than just suggest code snippets. It’s a tool that can interact with your environment in a much deeper way.

For example, Claude-Dev can read your terminal logs, understand linting errors, and even run arbitrary CLI commands. This means that if you ask it why your project isn’t building, it won’t just offer suggestions-it will actually go and look at the relevant files, figure out what kind of project you’re working with (Node, React, Python, etc.), and try to build it for you. If there’s an error, it reads the logs, tries to diagnose the problem, and can even apply fixes if needed.

It’s not perfect, though. In my experience, Claude-Dev isn’t as fast as Cursor, especially when it’s making edits. One reason for this is that it rewrites entire files instead of just updating the parts that need to change. This slows things down, and if you’re paying for API tokens (you need to supply an API key from the LLM you want to use), it burns through those faster than it should. I’ve been thinking about contributing to the project to fix this by having it update just the necessary lines via shell commands like sed.

One feature I’ve found particularly interesting is how Claude-Dev can use Puppeteer to visually test and update your frontend. You can give it a screenshot of a website, and it will compare that to your app, iterating until it gets your frontend to match the look you’re going for. It’s not the fastest process, but it’s surprisingly good at handling CSS-something that, for me at least, is usually a bit of a time sink.

Where It Falls Short

Claude-Dev is definitely a tool for people who are comfortable experimenting with something that’s still a bit rough around the edges. Unlike Cursor, which feels more like a polished product that’s ready for prime time, Claude-Dev is more like a powerful tool in active development. It doesn’t always get things right the first time, and it’s slower than I’d like, but it’s constantly improving. The fact that it’s open source and primarily developed by one person makes its pace of innovation even more impressive.

So Which One Should You Use?

If you’re looking for a polished, fast experience with a focus on speed and quick suggestions, Cursor might be the better choice. It feels snappy, it integrates with your existing VSCode setup, and it keeps you in flow-until you hit a paywall. But if you’re okay with that and don’t need the extra bells and whistles, Cursor is a great tool.

On the other hand, if you want something that can do more than just autocomplete code-something that can actually help with debugging, building, and iterating on your project- Claude-Dev is a better fit. It’s more versatile, but also a bit slower and rougher around the edges. If you’re comfortable experimenting and can put up with some quirks, it offers a level of functionality that Cursor just doesn’t have right now.

For me, Claude-Dev wins out, mostly because of its deeper integration with my workflow. The ability to read logs, run commands, and iterate until a problem is solved is invaluable, especially when I’m working with unfamiliar codebases. That said, I still find myself using Cursor when I need to move fast and don’t want to wait around for the AI to process a command.

Final Thoughts

Both Cursor and Claude-Dev offer unique benefits, and I think we’re only scratching the surface of what AI-driven coding tools can do. There’s a lot of potential here, especially as these tools continue to evolve. I’m excited to see where they go, and I’ll keep experimenting with both to see how they fit into my development workflow.

In the meantime, I’d recommend trying out both and for yourself. Each tool has its strengths, and you’ll probably find that one fits your style better than the other, depending on what you’re working on.