How to Configure Custom and Free AI Models in Cursor IDE Without a Pro Subscription

While Cursor IDE provides seamless access to frontier models under its subscription tiers, developers can route their own API endpoints or locally hosted models using Cursor’s custom model settings.

Step 1: Accessing Custom OpenAI Base URLs

Under Cursor Settings -> Models:

1. Toggle off default model overrides.
2. Enable "OpenAI API Key".
3. Expand the Advanced options to input an alternative Base URL.

Step 2: Configuring Ollama or Local vLLM

To route completions directly to a local GPU instance running Ollama:

• Base URL: http://localhost:11434/v1
• Model Name: qwen2.5-coder:7b or deepseek-coder

Step 3: Mitigating Context Token Costs

When using external custom endpoints, monitor token usage on full-codebase indexing. Providing clean .cursorignore files prevents the indexer from ingesting large build artifacts, node_modules, or database dumps.

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A comprehensive walkthrough detailing free provider endpoints compatible with Cursor’s configuration can be found here:
Cursor Free Models Setup Guide