Hey everyone, let's talk about the new kid on the block that’s been making some serious waves: Cursor. If you're a developer, you've probably heard the buzz. It's an AI-first code editor that promises to revolutionize the way we write code. & honestly, the hype is pretty understandable. The idea of an IDE that's built from the ground up with artificial intelligence at its core is pretty darn appealing.

But here's the thing. Lately, I've been noticing a shift in the conversation. While a lot of people are still singing its praises, there's a growing number of developers who are quietly packing their bags & moving back to their trusty old VSCode setups. So, what's the deal? Is Cursor the future of coding, or is it just a glorified VSCode wrapper with a hefty price tag? Let's get into it.

First off, let's be clear: Cursor is a fork of VSCode. The Anysphere team, the brains behind Cursor, took the open-source codebase of VSCode & built their own thing on top of it. So, if you're a VSCode user, the interface is going to feel SUPER familiar. They even prompt you to import all your existing VSCode extensions when you first launch it, which is a nice touch.

But the real magic of Cursor is its deep, native AI integration. We're not just talking about a simple autocomplete feature here. Cursor's AI is woven into the very fabric of the editor. It can help you with everything from generating entire project structures from a single prompt (they call it "Composer") to refactoring code, writing documentation, & even debugging. The idea is to create a seamless, collaborative experience between you & the AI, making you a more efficient & effective programmer.

Unlike VSCode, where you have to rely on extensions like GitHub Copilot to get your AI fix, Cursor has it all built-in. This means the AI has a much deeper understanding of your entire codebase, allowing it to provide more context-aware suggestions & make changes across multiple files at once. Pretty cool, right?

For a while, it seemed like Cursor was unstoppable. Developers were flocking to it, excited by the prospect of an IDE that could genuinely make them more productive. I mean, who wouldn't want an AI assistant that can take care of the tedious parts of coding, freeing you up to focus on the more creative aspects of the job?

For businesses, the appeal is even more obvious. Imagine a tool that can speed up your development cycles & help your team write better code. That's where a platform like Arsturn comes into the picture. Just like Cursor aims to streamline the development process, Arsturn helps businesses automate their customer service with custom AI chatbots. These chatbots can be trained on your company's data to provide instant, personalized support to your website visitors 24/7. It’s all about leveraging AI to work smarter, not harder.

So, if Cursor is so great, why are developers starting to jump ship? Well, it turns out that even the most promising technologies can have their fair share of problems. & in Cursor's case, those problems are starting to pile up.

This is probably the BIGGEST complaint I've seen. For an IDE that's supposed to boost productivity, Cursor can be painfully slow. I'm talking about frequent freezing, memory leaks, & a general sluggishness that can bring your workflow to a grinding halt. & the crazy thing is, these issues aren't just affecting people with older machines. I've seen reports from developers with high-end rigs – we're talking Ryzen 7 processors & 64GB of RAM – who are still experiencing major performance problems.

One developer on Reddit described how dragging a file into the chat interface made their entire system slow down. Another, using a brand new M3 MacBook Pro, said they had to restart the application "very frequently" because of performance issues. That's just not acceptable for a tool that's meant to be a professional development environment.

On top of the performance issues, there's the bug problem. A lot of users are reporting that Cursor is just plain unstable. The AI will often break existing code, misunderstand the context of a request, or even apply changes to the wrong file. One user on YouTube mentioned how the AI would sometimes remove console logs that they had intentionally left in for debugging purposes. Little things like that can be incredibly frustrating & can seriously erode your trust in the tool.

Here's a really interesting one. Some of the early adopters of Cursor, the ones who have been with it from the beginning, are saying that the quality of the AI has actually gotten WORSE over time. There's a theory floating around that the Cursor team, in an effort to manage costs or for other reasons, has started to reduce the context window that the AI has access to. This means the AI has less information to work with, which can lead to less accurate & less helpful suggestions.

One developer on Reddit went as far as to say that the introduction of a new AI model, Sonnet 3.7, was "the beginning of the end." They found that the AI was struggling with tasks that it used to handle with ease, & that they were having to spend more time breaking down their requests into smaller, simpler chunks. That kind of defeats the whole purpose of having a powerful AI assistant, doesn't it?

This is a big one for me. Trust is EVERYTHING when it comes to the tools you rely on every day. & it seems like the Cursor team has fumbled the ball when it comes to communication & transparency. There have been complaints about sudden, unexplained price hikes, with some users reporting that their bills jumped from $28 to $500 in just three days.

What's worse is that the team has been pretty quiet about these changes. There have been no official blog posts or documentation explaining what's going on. When you're charging a premium price for your product, you OWE it to your users to be upfront & honest with them.

This brings us to the final point: the cost. Cursor's Pro tier will set you back $20 a month. While that might not seem like a lot for a professional tool, it's double the price of GitHub Copilot, which costs $10 a month. & with all the performance issues, bugs, & questions about the AI's quality, a lot of developers are starting to wonder if Cursor is really worth the extra money.

When open-source alternatives are getting better & better, & when you can get a pretty darn good AI experience with VSCode & a Copilot subscription, it's becoming harder for Cursor to justify its premium price tag.

Here's the thing: I don't think Cursor is a "glorified VSCode wrapper." It's a genuinely innovative product with a ton of potential. The idea of a deeply integrated, AI-first code editor is incredibly exciting, & for a while, it seemed like Cursor was on the right track.

But the truth is, building a stable, reliable, & performant IDE is HARD. & it seems like the Cursor team might have bitten off more than they can chew. They've been so focused on pushing the boundaries of what's possible with AI that they've neglected some of the fundamentals.

For businesses looking to leverage AI, this is a really important lesson. It's not enough to just have a cool idea. You need to be able to execute it flawlessly. That's why a platform like Arsturn is so valuable. It provides a no-code solution for building custom AI chatbots, so you don't have to worry about the technical complexities. You can just focus on creating a great experience for your customers. Arsturn helps businesses build meaningful connections with their audience through personalized chatbots, trained on their own data to boost conversions & provide a truly unique customer experience.

At the end of the day, I think the "developer exodus" from Cursor is a bit of an overstatement. There are still a TON of people who love the product & are willing to put up with its flaws. But the fact that so many developers are having these conversations is a sign that something needs to change.

The Cursor team has a real opportunity here. They have a product that people are genuinely excited about. If they can just knuckle down, fix the performance issues, squash the bugs, & be more transparent with their users, they could still win back the hearts & minds of the developer community.

But until then, I think we're going to see a lot more developers sticking with their tried-&-true VSCode setups. Because at the end of the day, a tool that's reliable & performant is always going to be better than one that's flashy but flawed.

I hope this was helpful! Let me know what you think in the comments. Have you tried Cursor? Are you thinking about making the switch? I'd love to hear your thoughts.