Review of Cursor vs Cody
Cursor wins on raw AI capability and editor integration. Cody wins on price (free for individuals, $9/month for teams) and on letting you stay in VS Code or JetBrains. Pick Cursor if you want the best tab completion and Composer-style multi-file edits. Pick Cody if you already have an editor you love and just want a good AI sidekick.
Cursor is a fork of VS Code built around AI. Tab completion, inline editing, multi-file refactors, and codebase chat all run on a mix of GPT-5, Claude 4, and Cursor's own models. Pricing: $20/month Pro, $40/month Business. Free tier is 2,000 completions + 50 slow requests.
Cody by Sourcegraph is an AI coding assistant that lives inside VS Code, JetBrains, Visual Studio, and Eclipse. It uses Claude, GPT, and Sourcegraph's code-search context. Pricing: Free for individuals (with limits), $9/month for Pro, $19/user/month for Enterprise. It reads your whole repo via Sourcegraph's code search, which gives it strong cross-file context.
Cursor's tab completion is the gold standard right now. It predicts your next edit, not just your next word, and understands 'rename this variable across the file' as a single keystroke. Cody's tab completion is good but feels a step behind. Cursor wins here.
Both have codebase chat, but they answer different questions well. Cursor's chat is best for 'where is X defined?' and 'how does this function work?' Cody's chat is best for 'where is X used across the whole monorepo?' because it taps into Sourcegraph's code search. Cody wins for big monorepos. Cursor wins for small-to-medium projects.
Cursor's Composer is in a class of its own. It can refactor across 10+ files, write migrations, and update tests in one prompt. Cody has Commands and Edit Code, but it's single-file at a time. Cursor wins.
Cursor uses ~200K token context for chat, but only feeds the relevant files. Cody uses Sourcegraph's full code search to pull in any file in the repo. For huge monorepos, Cody pulls in more relevant context. For focused work, Cursor is faster.
Cursor's Business tier ($40/month) has a privacy mode that doesn't train on your code. Cody's free tier does not train on your code by default, and Enterprise has SOC 2, audit logs, and SSO. Cody wins on enterprise privacy at a lower price.
Cursor is its own editor (VS Code fork). Cody runs in VS Code, JetBrains (IntelliJ, PyCharm, GoLand, WebStorm), Visual Studio, and Eclipse. If you live in JetBrains, Cody is the only option. Cody wins.
Cursor: $20/month Pro, $40/month Business. Cody: Free for individuals, $9/month Pro, $19/user/month Enterprise. Cody is 2-4x cheaper for the same level of capability. Cody wins on price.
Full-time devs who want the best tab completion and Composer-style multi-file edits, and don't mind paying $20/month for it. Teams that already use Slack and Linear (Cursor integrates with both).
Devs who already love their editor (especially JetBrains users), teams with huge monorepos, and anyone who wants a free AI assistant that respects privacy out of the box.
Yes. Many devs use Cursor for greenfield work and Cody for big monorepo refactors. The two are not mutually exclusive, but the monthly cost adds up fast ($29/month combined for the cheap tier).
Cursor is the better AI editor if you can afford it. Cody is the better AI sidekick if you want to stay in your existing editor and pay less. Both are excellent. The wrong answer is paying for neither and using Copilot's free tier for another year.
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