Cursor (IDE)
AI-first IDE that forked VS Code; Composer (multi-file edit) and Agent Mode (long-running coding agent) are its flagship surfaces. Memory layer = .cursorrules / Rules; recall via repo-aware Context Engine. Anysphere (parent) raised $900M Series C at $9.9B in May 2025; acquired by SpaceX (announced 2026-08-14, terms undisclosed), product continues under the Cursor brand.
Acquired · Verified 2026-10-27 · fresh as of 2026-10-27 · 46 cited facts, 1 with a third-party source · 1 recorded change · Suggest a correction
At a glance
- Tier
- T1
- Section
- Agent IDEs & coding harnesses
- Latest release
- Agent SDK (2026-10-20) vendor fix
- License
- not applicable — not OSS fix
- GitHub
- not applicable — no GitHub repo fix
- Pricing
- Free $0; Plus $8/mo (Grok models only); Premium $30/mo; Super $100/mo; Ultra $200/mo; Teams from $30/user/mo; Enterprise custom; third-party models billed separately by usage vendor fix
- Funding
- Acquired by SpaceX (announced 2026-08-14, terms undisclosed); previously $900M Series C at $9.9B (2025-05) vendor fix
- Freshness
- 2026-10-27 fix
- Layer
- agent-infra repo fix
- Licensing
- commercial vendor fix
When to use
Optimised for: developer experience + Composer multi-file edits + Agent Mode
Anti-fit: not for non-coding tasks
Pros & cons
Pros
Highest mindshare in the coding-IDE category; Composer+Agent Mode are the reference UX many competitors chase; fast model switching.
Cons
VS Code fork creates extension drift; pricing-per-request model became contentious mid-2025; enterprise-feature parity with Microsoft is incomplete.
Claims & capabilities
Anysphere $900M Series C at $9.9B val (May 2025); reportedly $200M ARR by mid-2025; over 360k paying devs claimed.
Technical surface
- API surface
- Desktop IDE; Cursor CLI (interactive, headless/CI, ACP); Agent SDK (TypeScript, Python; GA 2026-10-20)
- Backend storage
- local workspace + cloud session state for Background Agents
- Deployment
- Managed-only — desktop app backed by vendor cloud; Agent SDK agents can also run as a Node process on own infrastructure
- Embedding model
- not applicable — not a memory product
- Multi-tenancy
- per-user workspace; Enterprise tenants isolated
- MCP
- yes — install and manage MCP servers in Cursor (editor and CLI)
- A2A
- searched not found
- OpenTelemetry
- searched not found
Compare Cursor (IDE) with…
Alternatives to Cursor (IDE) → live options ranked by shared design, licence, hosting and MCP support
Similar systems
Other agent ides & coding harnesses in the catalog, ranked by inbound references.
- Claude Code (Anthropic) T1
Anthropic's agentic coding tool: Claude as a coding agent in the terminal, IDEs (VS Code, JetBrains), desktop app, web/mobile, GitHub and Slack. Context via CLAUDE.md, skills, hooks, subagents and MCP servers.
- OpenAI Codex CLI T1
OpenAI's actively developed OSS terminal coding agent (Apr 2025), now written in Rust (codex-rs replaced the original TS CLI); also IDE extension + desktop app. Separate from the Codex Web cloud agent and the retired 2021 Codex model API. The codex mcp-server command (Codex as an MCP server) was deprecated on 2026-08-24 and removed in CLI 0.154.0 (2026-09-09); OpenAI points integrations to the experimental Codex app server, and codex mcp still connects Codex to external MCP servers.
- Opencode (SST) T2
SST team's open-source terminal coding agent — TypeScript, multi-model, MCP-native. Released 2025; explicitly positioned as a permissively-licensed Claude Code alternative. Memory via AGENTS.md (the emerging cross-harness convention).
- Bedrock AgentCore (AWS) T2
AWS Bedrock AgentCore — managed runtime to deploy + scale + observe agents. Multi-component: Runtime, Identity, Memory, Gateway, Browser, Code Interpreter, Observability. Distinct from Bedrock Agents (older fixed-config product); AgentCore is the 2025 framework-agnostic runtime for any agent (LangGraph, CrewAI, Strands, OpenAI Agents SDK).
- GitHub Copilot (Agent Mode) T1
The original AI coding assistant (Copilot in editor; 2021). 2025 evolved into a full agentic surface: chat, completions, Agent Mode (multi-step), and Copilot Workspace. Backed by Microsoft. Distinct row from Workspace — this row covers the everyday in-editor + agent mode product, Workspace covers the hosted spec-driven workflow.
- Goose (Block) T2
Block (Square)'s open-source on-machine agent — terminal + desktop GUI. Modular: extensions for shell, computer-control, MCP servers; multi-model via LiteLLM. Released 2024; positioned as a general-purpose local agent, not coding-only. Goose Recipes provide reusable agent workflows.
Sources (45 cited facts, 1 third-party)
Each fact links to the page it came from; the badge says who published it (how to read sources).
- What it is Agentic IDE; Agent Mode + Background Agents (VS Code fork) vendor
- What it does & what's distinct AI-first IDE that forked VS Code; Composer (multi-file edit) and Agent Mode (long-runnin… vendor
- Claims / benefits Anysphere $900M Series C at $9.9B val (May 2025); reportedly $200M ARR by mid-2025; over… vendor
- Modalities text vendor
- Created 2022 vendor
- Latest release Agent SDK (2026-10-20) vendor
- Mindshare 30+ HN front-page threads; #1 most-discussed coding agent on X/HN 2024-2025 vendor
- Funding Acquired by SpaceX (announced 2026-08-14, terms undisclosed); previously $900M Series C … vendor
- Customers / scale $200M ARR (reported); 51-200 ppl; Shopify, Instacart, Mercado Libre, Perplexity vendor
- Pricing Free $0; Plus $8/mo (Grok models only); Premium $30/mo; Super $100/mo; Ultra $200/mo; Te… vendor
- Compliance SOC 2 Type II; enterprise SSO vendor
- Data handling Privacy Mode (no training, no retention); BYOK for enterprise vendor
- Deployment Managed-only — desktop app backed by vendor cloud; Agent SDK agents can also run as a No… vendor
- HQ US (San Francisco; Anysphere Inc.) vendor
- Founders / pedigree Anysphere — Michael Truell, Sualeh Asif, Arvid Lunnemark, Aman Sanger (all MIT) vendor
- Memory volume / scale no scale claim vendor
- API surface Desktop IDE; Cursor CLI (interactive, headless/CI, ACP); Agent SDK (TypeScript, Python; … vendor
- Backend storage local workspace + cloud session state for Background Agents vendor
- Multi-tenancy per-user workspace; Enterprise tenants isolated vendor
- Encryption TLS in transit; AES-256 at rest (Privacy Mode) vendor
- SSO / RBAC SSO + RBAC (Business/Enterprise) vendor
- Versioning rules files in git (versioned) vendor
- Schema evolution free-form / no schema vendor
- Namespace primitives per-workspace (.cursor/, .cursorrules) vendor
- Contradiction handling human-arbitrate via rule edits vendor
- MCP support yes — install and manage MCP servers in Cursor (editor and CLI) vendor
- Import / export rules are plain-text files vendor
- Validated verticals coding agents only — broad horizontal vendor
- Time to running <10min (sign-up + desktop install) vendor
- Anti-fit not for non-coding tasks vendor
- Optimised for developer experience + Composer multi-file edits + Agent Mode vendor
- Adjacent infrastructure Anthropic Claude + OpenAI GPT + own Cursor-Tab model vendor
- Pros Highest mindshare in the coding-IDE category; Composer+Agent Mode are the reference UX m… vendor
- Cons VS Code fork creates extension drift; pricing-per-request model became contentious mid-2… vendor
- Project & sources cursor.com; Anysphere May-2025 Series C; HN threads vendor
- cost-input-usd-per-mtok 0 vendor
- cost-output-usd-per-mtok 0 vendor
- cost-tier free vendor
- cost-pricing-model free-tier vendor
- cost-last-verified 2026-06-29 vendor
- adoption-accelerator ai-grant third-party
- architecture-deployment-locus ide vendor
- licensing-bucket commercial vendor
- positioning-platform-vs-product product vendor
- taxonomy-three-layer-rollup agent-infra repo
What changed
Changes to this record's lifecycle, licence, release, pricing and hosting facts, from the catalog's git history. Subscribe (Atom)
- 2026-10-27
- Latest release “not applicable — not OSS” → “Agent SDK (2026-10-20)” source
- Pricing “Free + paid” → “Free $0; Plus $8/mo (Grok models only); Premium $30/mo; Super $100/mo; Ultra $200/mo; Teams from $30/user/mo; Enterprise custom; third-party models billed separately by usage” source
- Funding / ownership “$900M Series C at $9.9B · 2025-05 (Thrive, a16z)” → “Acquired by SpaceX (announced 2026-08-14, terms undisclosed); previously $900M Series C at $9.9B (2025-05)” source
- Deployment “Cloud (desktop client + cloud agents)” → “Managed-only — desktop app backed by vendor cloud; Agent SDK agents can also run as a Node process on own infrastructure” source
- MCP support “native — Cursor MCP support since 2025” → “yes — install and manage MCP servers in Cursor (editor and CLI)” source
Related systems
References (2)
- Anthropic Claude (foundation models) depends on at runtime — adjacent-infrastructure cell: Anthropic Claude + OpenAI GPT + own Cursor-Tab model
- OpenAI GPT family (GPT-5 / GPT-4o / o3 / o4) depends on at runtime — adjacent-infrastructure cell: Anthropic Claude + OpenAI GPT + own Cursor-Tab model
Referenced by (26)
- agentgateway integrates with — agentgateway integrations docs have a Cursor client page. (verified 2026-10-29)
- Arcade.dev integrates with — Arcade docs have a Cursor (IDE) integration page. (verified 2026-10-29)
- Arize Phoenix integrates with — Arize Phoenix docs have a Cursor (IDE) integration page. (verified 2026-10-29)
- Bifrost (Maxim AI) integrates with — Bifrost docs have a CLI-agent integration page for Cursor. (verified 2026-10-29)
- Braintrust integrates with — Braintrust docs have a Cursor (IDE) integration page. (verified 2026-10-29)
- Cloudflare AI Gateway integrates with — Cloudflare AI Gateway integrations docs have a Cursor page. (verified 2026-10-29)
- Comet ML integrates with — Comet's Opik docs have a Cursor (IDE) integration page. (verified 2026-10-29)
- Daytona integrates with — Daytona docs have a guide for running Cursor (IDE) with Daytona sandboxes. (verified 2026-10-29)
- Docker MCP Catalog, Toolkit & Gateway integrates with — Docker MCP Toolkit get-started page has connect-client instructions for Cursor. (verified 2026-10-29)
- e2b integrates with — E2B docs have a Cursor (IDE) integration guide. (verified 2026-10-29)
- Fireworks AI integrates with — Fireworks AI docs integration: Cursor IDE (Nexus harness, preview). (verified 2026-10-29)
- Keycard integrates with — Keycard docs have a "Connect coding agents" guide covering Cursor. (verified 2026-10-29)
- Langfuse integrates with — Langfuse's integrations directory has a Cursor (IDE) integration page. (verified 2026-10-29)
- LangSmith integrates with — LangSmith docs have a tracing integration page for Cursor (IDE). (verified 2026-10-29)
- Mastra integrates with — Mastra repo ships the @mastra/cursor package built on the Cursor SDK. (verified 2026-10-29)
- Mem0 integrates with — Mem0 docs have a Cursor integration page (Add persistent memory to Cursor with automatic capture, explicit recall, a search tool, and six memory skills). (verified 2026-10-29)
- Merge Agent Handler integrates with — Merge Agent Handler page says Agent Handler can be installed as an MCP server for Cursor. (verified 2026-10-29)
- Modal integrates with — Modal's examples include running Cursor Cloud Agents on Modal. (verified 2026-10-29)
- OpenRouter integrates with — OpenRouter docs have a cookbook page on using Cursor with OpenRouter. (verified 2026-10-29)
- Pinecone integrates with — Pinecone's integrations directory has a Cursor (IDE) integration page. (verified 2026-10-29)
- Portkey AI integrates with — Portkey docs have a Cursor app/library integration page. (verified 2026-10-29)
- Stagehand integrates with — Stagehand docs have a Cursor (IDE) integration page. (verified 2026-10-29)
- Trigger.dev integrates with — Trigger.dev docs: Background Cursor agent using the Cursor CLI (example project). (verified 2026-10-29)
- TrueFoundry AI Gateway integrates with — TrueFoundry AI Gateway ecosystem lists a Cursor integration page. (verified 2026-10-29)
- Vercel AI Gateway integrates with — Vercel AI Gateway docs have a Cursor coding-agent page. (verified 2026-10-29)
- Vercel AI SDK integrates with — AI SDK docs have a Cursor AI SDK harness provider page. (verified 2026-10-29)