The reason most people picked Cursor was simple: one subscription, and every frontier model behind it. As of October 12, 2026, that is no longer the deal for anyone signing up fresh. I put together a longer comparison with screenshots and dated versions on DevToolLab; this is the condensed version.
What Cursor changed
New customers now land on "The X Subscription", which X Subscription Corp sells. The cheapest paid tier, Plus at $8 a month, includes Grok models and nothing else. On the higher tiers, Claude and GPT are still available, but Cursor's help center says they are not part of the plan allowance: you pay API list price for them from the first request, out of a prepaid balance.
If you already pay for a legacy Cursor plan, nothing changes unless you opt in, and Cursor warns that opting in is a one-way door.
Separately, OpenAI announced on August 28, 2026, that it plans to stop supplying its models to Cursor, proposing November 12, 2026, as the end date. That follows SpaceX completing its purchase of Cursor on August 14. Cursor's own model docs still top out at GPT-5.6, while Copilot and Devin Desktop already offer GPT-6.1 Sol.
Why people actually switch tools
Stack Overflow published its 2026 survey results on October 6, with over 30,000 responses. Among coding agents, Claude Code (66%) and GitHub Copilot (59%) lead. On switching: about a third of 13,144 respondents stayed put over the past year, a quarter moved for better output, 3.3% left because a tool got too expensive or limited, and 2.1% moved to reach a preferred model. Cursor's new pricing touches exactly those last two groups.
To keep the comparison honest, I measured every option against one person: someone on Cursor Pro at $20 a month who leans on Claude Sonnet and GPT in agent mode and hates surprise token bills.
Claude Code
Anthropic's agent works in the terminal, inside VS Code and its forks, JetBrains IDEs, a desktop app and the browser, and it is the survey's most-used agent. For the Claude half of our example, it is the obvious move: Claude Pro costs the same $20 and bundles Claude Code, with usage limits that reset every five hours plus a weekly cap.
The catches: no GPT models at all, and the GitHub repo is source-visible but not open source.
GitHub Copilot
Copilot is a plugin, not a new editor, so you keep VS Code, JetBrains, Xcode, Neovim or Zed. Since June 2026 it bills in AI credits worth a cent each. Pro is $10 a month for 1,500 credits, Pro+ is $39 for 7,000, and completions stay unlimited on paid plans. Its model menu reaches GPT-6.1 Sol and Claude Opus 5.5, but Pro only gets a subset; the premium models sit on Pro+.
OpenAI Codex
Codex covers the GPT side: a CLI, an extension for VS Code, Cursor, JetBrains and Xcode, and a cloud agent. ChatGPT Plus at $20 includes it, with GPT-6.1 Sol and GPT-6 Luna. The CLI is Apache 2.0 licensed; the extension and the cloud agent are not, and it only runs OpenAI models.
Devin Desktop (formerly Windsurf)
Cognition bought Windsurf in July 2025 and renamed the editor Devin Desktop on June 2, 2026. Its Pro plan, at $20, includes OpenAI, Claude, Gemini and Grok models with quotas that refresh daily and weekly, which makes it the closest thing to the old Cursor Pro deal. Usage beyond the quota bills at API prices.
Google Antigravity
Google's agentic IDE, launched November 2025, now also has a desktop agent app, a CLI (agy) and extensions for other editors. The free tier with Gemini 3.8 Flash is the most generous here; Google AI Pro at $19.99 adds Claude Sonnet and Opus 5.5. There are no GPT frontier models and no bring-your-own-key option.
Zed
Zed is a Rust editor, not a VS Code fork, and it is open source under GPL-3.0. The free plan lets you use your own API keys for Anthropic, OpenAI, Google and others, or local models through Ollama, and it can host Claude Code, Codex or Copilot as external agents. Pro is $10 with $5 of hosted tokens included. You do give up VS Code extensions.
Cline
Cline is an Apache 2.0 agent that lives inside VS Code, VSCodium, Windsurf or even Cursor. There is no subscription: you plug in your own keys, run local models, or sign in with an existing Claude Code or Codex plan. ClinePass at $9.99 a month covers open-weight models. Heavy months cost whatever your tokens cost.
Kiro
AWS's IDE is built on Code OSS, so your VS Code settings come along, and it writes a spec before it writes code. Pro is $20 for 1,000 credits, where each model has a multiplier: Sonnet 5.5 at 1.3x, GPT-5.6 Sol at 4.4x. There is no documented bring-your-own-key path, and the IDE is closed source.
Comparison at a glance
| Tool | Entry paid plan | Claude | GPT | Open source |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Claude Code | $20/month | Yes | No | No |
| GitHub Copilot | $10/month | Yes | Yes | No |
| OpenAI Codex | $20/month | No | Yes | CLI only |
| Devin Desktop | $20/month | Yes | Yes | No |
| Google Antigravity | $19.99/month | Pro and up | GPT-OSS only | No |
| Zed | $0 with your keys | Yes | Yes | Yes |
| Cline | $0 with your keys | Yes | Yes | Yes |
| Kiro | $20/month | Yes | Yes | No |
| Cursor (new signups) | $8/month | API price | API price | No |
Versions, star counts and every plan detail are dated in the full comparison on DevToolLab, along with a screenshot of each product.
Picking one without regretting it
Start by checking which Cursor plan you are on, because the legacy ones keep working until you switch. Then look at which models you actually used last month: mostly Claude points to Claude Code, mostly GPT to Codex, and a mix to Devin Desktop, Copilot Pro+ or Kiro. If you are leaning toward Zed or Cline, estimate your token spend first with a token cost calculator, since those tools bill exactly what the provider charges.
One habit makes every future switch cheaper: keep your project rules in an AGENTS.md file, which Codex, Copilot's coding agent, Zed and Devin all read. An AGENTS.md generator gets you a starting file in a minute.
My short verdict
- Claude was most of your Cursor usage: Claude Code at $20.
- You want Claude and GPT for one flat price: Devin Desktop Pro, or Copilot Pro+ if you want to keep your IDE.
- No subscriptions: Cline or Zed with your own keys.
- Your company lives on GitHub or AWS: Copilot Business or Kiro.
The real lesson of 2026 is that an AI editor is only as stable as its owner's model deals. Tools that run on your own keys, or inside the editor you already have, are the ones that survive the next shake-up.
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