What Is Cursor and Why It's Different

Not a Plugin — a Fork

Cursor is a full fork of Visual Studio Code. It is not an extension you install on top of VS Code, and it is not a wrapper that calls VS Code under the hood. It is a separate editor binary that has been rebuilt from the ground up with AI woven into every layer of the interface.

What that means practically: every VS Code extension you already use works in Cursor without modification. Your theme, your linter, your debugger, your keybindings — all of it carries over when you import your VS Code settings on first launch. The switch costs you nothing in terms of your existing setup, and it immediately gives you a fundamentally different relationship with AI in your editor.

The Four AI Surfaces

Cursor exposes AI through four distinct surfaces, each designed for a different kind of task:

• Tab — Inline code predictions that appear as ghost text as you type. Press Tab to accept, Esc to dismiss. Powered by cursor-small, a model optimised purely for inline completions. Tab predicts multi-line edits, not just the next word.
• Cmd+K (Inline Edit) — A floating prompt bar that opens in the file. Select code, describe what you want changed, and Cursor returns a colour-coded diff. Surgical, single-file editing without leaving the code you're looking at.
• Chat (Cmd+L) — A conversation panel that can answer questions about your codebase, explain code, and propose file changes. You add context using @-symbols: @file, @codebase, @docs, @web, @git.
• Agent (Cmd+I) — An autonomous agent that reads and modifies code across multiple files, runs terminal commands, and completes high-level tasks. You describe what you want to build or change; Agent figures out how.

Why This Is Different from Copilot

GitHub Copilot is a VS Code extension that adds inline suggestions and a chat panel. It works well for those two things. What it cannot do is act as an autonomous agent across your codebase, give you granular rules that shape every AI response, or connect to your external tools via MCP servers.

Cursor's Agent Mode can open files it has never been told about, run your test suite, read the output, and fix the failures — all in a single task. That depth of codebase understanding and autonomous capability is what separates it from plugin-based tools.

Cursor vs Windsurf

Windsurf is Cursor's closest competitor — also a VS Code fork with a capable AI agent (called Cascade). The key difference is philosophy: Cursor gives you granular control and asks for approval at each step, while Windsurf's Cascade acts more autonomously with less configuration. Cursor has broader model coverage and stronger developer mindshare as of 2026. Windsurf has a more capable free tier. Both are serious tools; this track covers Cursor.

The Models Behind the Curtain

Cursor does not have its own AI model for most tasks. It runs Claude (Anthropic), GPT (OpenAI), Gemini (Google), and its own Composer model — a fast, cost-efficient model for interactive coding. You choose which model handles each request. This model flexibility is a major advantage: when a new frontier model ships, Cursor adds it within days.