I don't really see why people still use Cursor over tools like Cline / Roo Code. I'm guessing it's as they clearly have a larger viral marketing department than engineers, as the application itself doesn't perform nearly as well, requires you to have another IDE installed and their subscriptions nerf the models context sizes etc...
Because at some point we have to stop riding the treadmill and just pick a tool and use it to make stuff. Cursor was the first to really arrive at a useful agent mode. It does everything I need it to and more. It's not worth it to me to keep hopping to new tools every time a new one becomes the hyped up hot thing.
Like it or not, we're hitting the slope of enlightenment and some of us are ready to be done with the churn for a while.
Cline was agent based from day one and doesn't try to do copilot style tab completes at all. It's been our go to agentic coding app across the majority of our large clients since mid-late 2024. Cursor has been trying to play catch up but has not delivered us the same results.
> doesn't try to do copilot style tab completes at all
Which is another reason why I'll stick with Cursor. Cursor's tab complete can barely be described as Copilot-style, it's nearly a different paradigm and it's what actually got me to pay for it in the first place. I only tried agent mode because it was included with the bundle.
> from day one
July 5, 2024 if going by initial commit. So, yes, technically before Cursor, but Cursor was building agent mode before Cline drew any attention in the mainstream. Cline's first interest on HN dates back to January.
I'll concede that it appears Cline did get to agents first, but it's still a new development in terms of actually drawing interest.
Remember, not everyone is a pro dev. I'm certainly not: and in that context I find Cursor to be incredibly simple and useful.
It's just like VSC, which I was using, but it has these magical abilities. I was using it within a minute of downloading it. Unlike Cline, I guess, whatever that is.
Because my company decided to pay for everyone's cursor and I don't have the bandwidth to spend my time constantly evaluating what's better and pitching it?
I use cursor because it’s way cheaper to pay their monthly subscription than bringing my own key. I’ve tried all tools and in the end the most cost effective one ended up being cursor. In others I’d end up burning $10 a day.
I couldn't possibly disagree with you more that Cline is better than Cursor. Cursor's success isn't because of "a larger viral marketing department"; it's because they made superior software and service.
Cline eats tokens for breakfast, especially for reasoning models. Used it to apply an older patch for a certain React Native lib to a newer version (was not very big but files moved around etc.) and it blew through my free 1 Mio tokens per day for o3 in a few minutes. It worked flawlessly though, but Cursor is just way cheaper.
> their subscriptions nerf the models context sizes etc
You can use the full-context if you prefer that cost/speed tradeoff! Just have to turn on Max Mode.
Cline is great for many users, but a bit of a different product. Lots of Cursor's value come from custom models that run in the background (e.g. Tab, models that gather context, etc.).
Because if you’re paying for your own subscription, it’s a way to control costs. If you know how to use it properly, it’s possible to stay within the $20/month spend. Just not if you are tossing trivial tasks to Claude4/GeminiPro and forever topping up tokens.
A lot of power in social influence. Especially with the younger generations who remix that influence - compound spread of mindshare. Cursor is all over social media.
That's silly. Cursor has the best autocomplete experience, period, and some people prefer that to agent-style interactions.
There's still a ton of low hanging fruit that other Copilot-style autocomplete products don't seem to be picking up, like using clipboard contents, identifying the next place in the file to jump to, etc.
I primarily save time coding with AI with autocomplete, followed by chat, with agentic flows a very distant 3rd, so Cursor is a legitimately better product for me.
It’s not silly at all. There is a lot of hyper activity going in terms of social influence.
I didn’t say cursor has poor UX.
I tab too. And use agent for cheaper work I don’t care too much about. That said, the best autocomplete is arguably evolving and cursor does not own that.
I have too much work and too little time. I tried them all and cursor is the only one with a polished enough experience that made it stick right away. Others might be good but I didn’t have anything near the flowless experience of cursor
Someone said "I don't really see why people still use Cursor over tools like Cline / Roo Code"
And your answer is "A lot of power in social influence.", which is a bit silly when autocomplete is the first form of AI assistance a critical mass of people found intuitive + helpful and Cursor has the best implementation of it... meanwhile Cline/Roo Code don't provide it.
Nah, you definitely don't get it. Some people are here enjoying the act of programming, and Cursor Tab is acting like an improvement on IntelliSense/autocomplete that actually knows what it's doing. Not all of us want to spend half an hour going back and forth with a robot about what it didn't do quite right when we can be in the actual code, tweak a couple lines, and press tab for it to replicate the change in the next 50 now it knows.
Agentic coding is fine, definitely helps me a lot with setup and boilerplate, but finer business logic details and UX changes are now it's strong suit especially if you know WHAT you want but not HOW to explain it in a clear enough format that it can do it without additional prompting.
I actually like programming, and I find typing and having the model autocomplete my changes pretty useful.
I’d rather do that than painstakingly put my request into prose, cross my fingers, and hope the “agent” doesn’t burn 100,000 tokens making stupid and unrelated changes all over my codebase.
I believe in “show, don’t tell,” and autocomplete is the former while agents are the latter.
It is more effective when you have to do a bunch of similar changes. Or when code is standard enough that you just hit tab, and change perhaps one line. Or when parts of code are immediately deduced from context, and substitutions/changes are immediately provided.
