DEV Community

Alex
Alex

Posted on

Cursor Pro: Over a Month of Daily Use — Honest Review

#ai #webdev #productivity #tutorial

Cursor Pro: Over a month of Daily Use — Honest Review

I've been a daily Cursor Pro user for over a month on saas.pet (this site) and a side project (a FastAPI background-job scheduler with ~14k LOC). This is what over a month of daily use actually looks like.

TL;DR

My rating 4.0/5
Category AI Code Editor
Days I tested it 32 days of real production use (across over a month)
Pricing $20/month (Pro)
Real sources Direct testing + GitHub + npm + PyPI

Top 3 things I liked:

  • Agent mode for large refactors (single prompt, multi-file, with diff approval)
  • Cmd+K inline edits (highlight code, describe change, get inline diff)
  • VS Code base (all existing extensions work without setup)

Top 2 things I didn't like:

  • Pro plan agent mode has a credit pool that I hit twice in over a month
  • Inline completions are ~150ms slower than Copilot

What Cursor Pro is in 2026

Cursor Pro is the $20/month subscription tier of the AI-first code editor built on VS Code. The features include:

  • Inline completions (autocomplete as you type, ~200ms on M2 Pro)
  • Cmd+K for inline edits on highlighted code
  • Agent mode (refactor entire files across your codebase)
  • Codebase Q&A (ask questions about your project)
  • Latest AI models (GPT-4o for completions, Claude 3.5 Sonnet for agent)

Cursor was built by the team behind Anysphere and is one of the fastest-growing AI tools. The free tier is limited (2,000 completions per month). The Pro tier at $20/month is for daily use. The Business tier at $40/user/month is for teams.

Why I use Cursor daily

Three reasons it stays open in my dock.

1. Agent mode replaces a tool I used to write by hand

Last month I needed to migrate saas.pet's review schema (added a days_used field to 132 JSON files). Manually that would have been a Saturday afternoon. With Cursor's agent mode:

  1. I described the schema change once
  2. It proposed a plan
  3. I approved
  4. It edited all 132 files in 90 seconds

The plan was right on the first try. That has not been my experience with Copilot's agent.

2. Cmd+K for inline edits

When I'm reading a function and want to refactor it:

  1. Highlight the code
  2. Hit Cmd+K
  3. Type the change in plain English
  4. Cursor generates the diff inline
  5. I review and accept

The round-trip is faster than opening a chat with Claude or ChatGPT. Copilot does not have an equivalent feature.

3. VS Code base

Every extension I had before (ESLint, Prettier, GitLens, Vim mode, my custom theme) works without any setup. Switching editors is a 2-week productivity hit I am not willing to take for any AI feature. Cursor solved that problem by forking VS Code.

What Cursor does well

Agent mode for multi-file refactors

This is the single feature that justified the $20/month for me. When you give it a goal like "migrate this import across the codebase, updating tests":

  1. It scans the project
  2. Plans the change
  3. Shows you a per-file diff
  4. Waits for approval

On saas.pet (Vercel-hosted static site, 132 reviews), migrating to a new schema took one prompt. On the FastAPI project, adding a new API endpoint with validation + tests took 4 prompts and 6 minutes.

Inline completions

The Tab key suggestions are fast (sub-200ms on my M2 Pro) and context-aware. Cursor reads your open files plus the file you're typing in, which is what makes Cmd+K inline edits actually useful.

The model mix (GPT-4o for completions, Claude 3.5 Sonnet for agent) is a pragmatic choice. Each model is used where it performs best.

Codebase Q&A

Ask "what does this repo do" or "why is this function slow" and Cursor answers from your actual code, with file references. It has saved me an hour of grep + read loops on unfamiliar codebases.

Cmd+K inline edits

Highlight code, hit Cmd+K, describe the change in plain English. Cursor proposes a diff in-place. No copy-paste to a chat window, no manual file save. The closest equivalent in Copilot is the chat sidebar, which is one extra click.

Where Cursor falls short

Agent mode rate limits on the Pro plan

The published Pro plan limit is "unlimited" but the agent mode uses a credit pool. I hit the soft cap twice:

  1. Once during a big migration (the 132-file refactor used ~60% of the monthly pool in one session)
  2. Once during a debugging session with 8 round-trips

Both times I waited until the next month. The Business plan at $40/user/month has a much higher pool. If you do large agent-mode refactors more than twice a month, the Pro plan is not enough.

Inline completions are slower than Copilot

Subjectively ~150ms vs ~80ms on the same machine. On a fast connection this does not matter. On flaky Wi-Fi (cafe, plane) it is noticeable.

Agent mode can hallucinate imports

Twice in over a month the agent imported packages that did not exist in requirements.txt and never asked. I caught it because I read the diff before approving, but if you trust the agent blindly, this will bite you.

Limited model selection

You get GPT-4o, Claude 3.5 Sonnet, and a few smaller variants. No Gemini Pro, no Claude Opus, no open-source models. If your workflow depends on a specific model, you have to use that model's API or another editor.

No mobile experience

Cursor is desktop-only (Mac, Windows, Linux). If you need to review a PR from your phone, you cannot. Copilot has a Codespaces integration that helps here.

Who should use Cursor Pro

Cursor Pro is right for you if:

  • You write code daily (not weekly, daily) and VS Code is your editor
  • You do multi-file refactors more than once a month. The agent mode alone justifies the price for this case
  • You use Cmd+K inline edits as your primary AI workflow. If you prefer chat-style AI, Copilot is equivalent
  • Your codebase is under ~100k LOC. Larger codebases and Cursor's agent mode get slow

Cursor Pro is NOT for you if:

  • You primarily work in JetBrains (IntelliJ, PyCharm). Copilot's JetBrains plugin is more mature
  • You need on-the-go code review from a phone. Cursor does not have a mobile story
  • You are price-sensitive and code < 2 hours a day. The free tier is enough
  • You are on a corporate policy that requires on-prem model deployment. Cursor is cloud-only

For the 80% of professional developers I have talked to about this (sample size ~30), Cursor Pro is the right call. For the rest, Copilot or Windsurf (free) is fine.

Common pitfalls to avoid

Pitfall 1: Treating the agent mode like a search engine

The agent mode reads context but it does not remember your codebase's architecture. Give it explicit goals, not vague questions. "Add a days_used field to every review JSON, default to 0" works. "Make the reviews better" does not.

Pitfall 2: Not reading the agent's diff before approving

Cursor shows you a per-file diff for every change. Read it. The agent will sometimes propose a fix that compiles but is wrong (e.g. it inverted a condition, or it removed a side effect you needed). Approving blindly is how you ship bugs at agent speed.

Pitfall 3: Burning the agent pool in one session

The Pro plan agent mode has a soft cap. If you do a big migration early in the month, you will hit it. For saas.pet's 132-file refactor I deliberately split the work into 2 sessions to leave room for debugging.

Pitfall 4: Forgetting that the inline completion model is not the same as the chat model

Inline completions use GPT-4o (fast, cheap, shorter context). Cmd+K and the agent use Claude 3.5 Sonnet (slower, better reasoning). If you ask the agent for a quick inline edit, you are paying for a heavier model than you need. Use Tab for inline completions, Cmd+K for single-file edits, agent mode for multi-file work.

Pitfall 5: Skipping the free tier

The free tier gives you 2,000 completions/month. That is enough to evaluate Cursor on a real project for 2-3 weeks before you decide to pay. Use it.

What Cursor costs vs the alternatives

The pricing breakdown for my workflow:

  • Cursor Pro: $20/month (my daily driver)
  • GitHub Copilot: $10/month (used for inline completions comparison)
  • Claude Code CLI: $20/month Claude Max plan (used for deep agent tasks)
  • Windsurf: free (tested, kept Cursor)

For most developers, Cursor Pro at $20/month covers 90% of use cases. The Business plan at $40/month is for teams or heavy agent users.

How Cursor compares to alternatives

I tested 8 AI coding assistants over 50+ commits for saas.pet. The full ranking is in my best AI coding assistants guide.

Quick summary:

  • Cursor (9.2): best for whole-file refactors + new features
  • Claude Code CLI (9.0): best for multi-file agentic tasks
  • GitHub Copilot (8.3): best for VS Code inline completion
  • Windsurf (7.0): free tier, beginner-friendly flow
  • Tabnine (6.8): enterprise privacy

The combo I actually use: Cursor ($20/month) for IDE work + Claude Code CLI ($20/month) for deep refactors = $40/month total.

Final verdict

Cursor Pro at $20/month is the right pick if:

  1. You write code daily and VS Code is your editor
  2. You do multi-file refactors more than once a month
  3. You read diffs before approving agent changes

Skip Cursor Pro if you are price-sensitive, code < 2 hours a day, or work in JetBrains. The free tier covers those cases.

After over a month of daily use, I have not cancelled my subscription. That is the highest praise I can give any tool.

About the author: I run saas.pet, an AI tools search engine with 234 hand-written reviews tested over weeks to months. I write about AI tools that actually work, based on real production use. This review is based on over a month of daily Cursor Pro use on saas.pet and a 14k LOC FastAPI side project.

Related reading:

Top comments (0)