Cursor IDE Review: The AI Coding Tool SpaceX Bought for $60 Billion

Social media declared Cursor dead. Then SpaceX showed up with sixty billion dollars.

Here is what happened: Anthropic’s Claude Code emerged in early 2026, and a lot of people assumed it would quickly replace Cursor as the go-to AI coding tool. On June 16, 2026, SpaceX announced it was acquiring Anysphere — Cursor’s developer — in a stock swap valued at approximately $60 billion. The deal briefly pushed SpaceX past Amazon to become the fifth most valuable company in the world.

This review is not about M&A math. It is about one question: with Claude Code, GitHub Copilot, and a dozen other AI coding assistants on the market, is Cursor actually worth switching to?

What Cursor Is

Cursor is essentially a VS Code-based AI-native code editor. It keeps the entire VS Code extension ecosystem intact, but layers AI features directly into the core: code autocomplete, conversational code generation, agent mode, and full project context awareness.

The difference from GitHub Copilot is that Copilot is a plugin while Cursor is the editor itself. AI is not an add-on — it is the center of the workflow. Every line you write in Cursor is seen by the AI in full context: all your open files, the project structure, your recent edit history.

Feature Review

Code Autocomplete

Cursor’s Tab autocomplete is the smoothest among AI coding tools right now. It does not just predict the next line — it predicts entire function implementations. Testing in Python and TypeScript projects, autocomplete accuracy was noticeably better than GitHub Copilot’s default completions. Particularly after it read the full project context, the generated code often matched the project’s naming conventions and architecture patterns without needing adjustment.

Conversational Code Generation

Cursor’s built-in chat lets you describe what you need in natural language and then it makes edits directly in your codebase. This differs from Claude Code’s terminal approach — Cursor’s chat happens inside the editor, and you can see a diff of the proposed changes before accepting or rejecting them.

In practice, refactoring tasks (splitting a function into modules, adding error handling, changing API call patterns) worked reliably and predictably. For tasks requiring deeper logical reasoning, such as designing a new algorithm from scratch, Claude Code still performs better.

Agent Mode

Cursor’s agent mode allows the AI to do more than answer questions — it actually executes multi-step coding tasks. You can ask it to “find all unhandled errors, add try-catch blocks, and write unit tests.” In small projects, this works fine. In large codebases, agent mode tends to make mistakes — it modifies files it should not touch or misses edge cases.

Right now agent mode is best suited for: style adjustments, documentation generation, simple test writing. Not suited for: core logic rewrites, security-related modifications.

Pricing

Plan	Price	What you get
Free	$0	Basic AI autocomplete, limited chat requests
Pro	$20/mo	Unlimited autocomplete, premium model access
Business	$40/mo	Pro features plus admin console and team collaboration

Compared to GitHub Copilot’s $10/month individual plan and Claude Code’s usage-based pricing, Cursor’s Pro plan sits in the middle. For a full-time developer, $20 a month for an AI editor is reasonable — provided you use it more than two hours a day.

What the SpaceX Acquisition Means

SpaceX’s $60 billion acquisition of Anysphere is not just a financial play. It means Cursor gains access to SpaceX’s massive infrastructure resources and engineering talent. From a developer’s perspective, this brings several possible changes:

The upside: More powerful backend compute means AI models can run faster and smarter. SpaceX’s systems engineering background could make Cursor’s agent mode more stable.

The risk: Will SpaceX prioritize Cursor as an internal tool over external users? If core Cursor development resources get redirected toward SpaceX’s internal needs, external users could see their experience degrade.

Cursor officially says the product will continue operating independently and pricing will not change due to the acquisition. But history tells us that “business as usual” promises after mega-acquisitions rarely last more than a few months.

Cursor vs Claude Code vs GitHub Copilot

Feature	Cursor	Claude Code	GitHub Copilot
Product form	Standalone editor	CLI tool	VS Code plugin
Context awareness	Full project	Current project	Current file
Best for	Daily dev work	Deep reasoning	Lightweight autocomplete
Pricing	$20/mo	Usage-based	$10/mo
Learning curve	Low	Medium	Lowest

Bottom line: if you want an AI-native daily development editor, Cursor is the best choice. If you need deep logical reasoning and architecture design, Claude Code is stronger. If you just want to add some AI assistance to your existing VS Code workflow, Copilot is enough.

Verdict

Cursor is not dead. It is alive and funded with $60 billion from SpaceX. But the acquisition brings variables worth watching. If you already use Cursor, keep using it — nothing bad is coming in the short term. If you are considering switching from Copilot or Claude Code, the answer is yes: try the Pro plan, especially if most of your development time is spent on business logic rather than architecture design.