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Cursor AI Editor — Is It Actually Useful?

BestCodes on September 10, 2024

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Rafał Goławski •

Well, Cursor is nice to play around with for a while, but in the long term I'll stick to VS Code and Copilot. It's more than enough for me.

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BestCodes •

That's basically how I feel (though I don't have Copilot). I've heard that Copilot is fantastic, but haven't tried it yet…

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BestCodes •

Hey guys!
Be sure to share AI tools you love with me. I'll check them out and let you know what I think!

Note: I'll also check out AI tools you made. A.K.A., self-promotion is accepted. 😀

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bethwickerson profile image
bethwickerson •

I just VSCode and CoPilot for a while, but I switched to Cursor shortly after it came out. I thought it was great for a long time, I love the integrated Chat versus auto-complete. That is until recently it seemed less and less helpful. I think it may have something to do with using GPT API keys instead of paying for a plan with Cursor, but so many times I would ask for help with issues and it would give me the exact same code that I had explained was bugging.

I have switched back to VSCode, partly because of what many others have said about long-term stability. Cursor is really just a fork of VS Code, and I have heard great things about Claude Dev. It seems to be a great improvement so far and includes the built-in chat!

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BestCodes •

Yes, there are a lot of concerns about stability.

Claude Dev is great! Personally, I prefer Codeium, which is completely free and has unlimited AI chat and autocompletions. There are a number of other awesome options, like Pieces, Copilot, Tabnine, etc.

Thanks for commenting!

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alt_exist profile image
Alternate Existance •

Claude Dev is awesome :D

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raulpenate profile image
The Eagle 🦅 •

It's a fork of VSCode, so you can use the TS plugin of VIM that MS made inside VSCode.

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BestCodes •

Not only that, but you can choose the default keyboard shortcuts to use when you first install the program. :D

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ThorHenrik •

i hope this is not breaking any. I wrote about Cursor on my hobby website i have created.
i have never showed it before, so idk if this is wrong place, but here:
fulltutorial.net/u/Thor/article/in...

I think it is nice

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BestCodes •

I think it's fine to post the link. :)

Your post is great!

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Jeremy Smith •

I installed it on two machines and it caused boot issues on both, I had to reinstall Ubuntu and lost two sets of local data / had to setup my machines again.

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BestCodes •

Not good! 😬
I had to start the .appimage file with --no-sandbox in the terminal to even get it working, and I had a lot of other problems that I haven't proven aren't just specific to my device or caused by Cursor, so I didn't include them in my post.

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jrrs1982 profile image
Jeremy Smith •

Yeah same, instant crash and boot issues on work laptop then stupidly I tried on my personal I had 2 mins with it and it looked great but then it crashed and I had to use usb for reinstall of Ubuntu.

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BestCodes •

🙁

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tqbit profile image
tq-bit •

Codeium all the way imho

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BestCodes •

😀 Yup!

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Jotty John •

Interesting article!

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BestCodes •

Thank you!

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Alex Bertalan •

According to Cursor documentation it does not have unlimited code autocompletions.
Free users receive 2000 suggestions at no cost. Pro and Business plans receive unlimited suggestions.
I used it for a few days and loved their autocompletion feature and wondered why it stopped cause I didn't got any notifications.

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BestCodes •

Thanks for pointing this out! I addressed the problem in my post.

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rmr32 profile image
rmr32 •

Switched to Cursor about two weeks ago on a Garuda Linux. It actually helped with some problems I couldn't solve on my own. Installed easy and haven't had issues. I was going to continue with a paid subscription, but now intrigued by Codeium.

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BestCodes •

Try both and let me know what you think!

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Sacha Wharton •

I gave it go and it is great but I had to give up using it as it locked up my Macbook Pro M2 to the point I had to hard reboot my machine. I will stick with VS Code and Codium.

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BestCodes •

Thanks for the feedback! It sounds like a lot of people are having problems with Cursor crashing.
There is a difference between Codium and Codeium. Just curious, which one do you use?

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sachajw profile image
Sacha Wharton •

Oh, I just learnt something, thank you very much. I thought I made a typo. I have now installed Codeium. Much appreciated for your response, :-) otherwise I would never have known.

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BestCodes •

No problem! They're both AI tools, but different all the same. :D

 
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BestCodes •

In my experience, VS Code has actually been pretty fast. I do think it could probably be fast if it didn't use Electron, but it works for me and is quite easy to debug.

Number 2 is a valid point... 😂

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pat-hubbs •

I enjoyed using Cursor for a week or so, but switched back to VSCode as Cursor was a bit too sluggish for my liking

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BestCodes •

Interesting. I hadn't noticed any sluggishness, but I didn't try too many intensive processes or anything.

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alt_exist profile image
Alternate Existance •

What was sluggish, I had not too many issues...

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Dror Wayne •

You should check out Fine. For serious developers doing more than just building a web app from scratch, it puts cursor to shame.

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BestCodes •

I develop most of my projects solo, but this looks like it would be super useful if I had a team! Thanks for sharing!

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alt_exist profile image
Alternate Existance •

Oooh looks nice :D

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Alternate Existance •

Nooooo ;( I hate VIM lol...

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bethwickerson •

v0 is a super smart tool for Next, Three, React. I wish there was an extension to use in VSCode

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BestCodes •

v0.dev is pretty great, I wish you could do more for free though...

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Ridho •

This is cool code editor i wil try later, thanks bro

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BestCodes •

Your welcome; be sure to let me know how it turns out!

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farid •

I think there is some in your redaction that should be misunderstood. Cursor is not only similar to VSCode, is a fork of VSCode so the codebase is the same.

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BestCodes •

I know that, but I was going for a short post to prompt discussion. :) The codebase structure of the two IDEs isn't super related to my main topic, so I kept it out.

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BestCodes •

I believe it does! :D

 
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BestCodes •

Why not?

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Expressa •

Awesome post!

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BestCodes •

Thank you!

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Rob Benzo •

I like Pieces

pieces.app/

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BestCodes •

Thanks for checking this out, Rob!

I've tried Pieces as well, and I also love it! The VS Code extension was a bit laggy, so I don't use it too much anymore.
Thanks for sharing!

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Alternate Existance •

I tried Cursor and it was ok, but I agree that vs code seems more stable; also didn't realize the free plan isnt unlimited :(

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Ananya Paw 🐾 •

for simple stuff yes, if you are too lazy to copy it from chatgpt, claude

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