Compare AI coding agents
Every tool here is the same shape: it reads your project, proposes changes, writes them to real files, and you review what happened. So the question is not which is best — it is which seat you want to sit in.
Which AI coding tool? Answer up to four questions
Each question is the deciding question of one comparison below, so every answer points at a page that argues it out.
Question 1
Do you want to watch the work, or receive it?
Terminal or editor
Different seats: where you sit while the agent works.
Claude Code vs Cursor
Both write real code into real files, and both can run your commands. The difference is where you sit while it happens: a terminal next to your tests, or an editor with changes shown in place.
Cursor vs Codex
Both can go either way now: work in front of you, or take a task to a cloud machine and come back with a pull request. What differs is the default — Cursor centres the editor, where you watch each edit land in the file; Codex starts from a terminal and treats handing the work over as one of its two main modes.
Claude Code vs GitHub Copilot
Both now reach the editor, the terminal and the cloud. What differs is where each one starts: Claude Code in a terminal next to your tests, Copilot in your editor and in GitHub's issues and pull requests.
Two terminal agents
The same seat: what separates them is the account, the model or the hand-off.
Claude Code vs Codex
The most similar pair here: two terminal agents with nearly the same workflow, and both can also take a task to the cloud and come back with a pull request. What separates them is which ecosystem you are already paying for.
Claude Code vs Gemini CLI
Two agents in the same seat. The real question is not which is smarter but whether your problems are local or spread across the codebase.
Claude Code vs Kimi
The query means one of two things: Kimi Code CLI, Moonshot AI's own terminal agent, or the Kimi models you can point another agent at. Against the first it is two agents in the same seat; against the second it is a different kind of choice.
Claude Code vs OpenCode
Two terminal agents with the same loop. Claude Code comes from Anthropic and runs its models; OpenCode is open source and runs whichever provider you connect. The choice is whether you want the model decided for you.
Codex vs Gemini CLI
Two open-source terminal agents from OpenAI and Google. Codex also hands tasks to the cloud and returns a pull request; Gemini CLI stays in the terminal and bets on holding a lot of the project at once.
Two editor agents
The same seat: a new editor, or the one you already have.
If this is your answer, start here
| The deciding question | If your answer is | Start with |
|---|---|---|
| Where do you want to check the agent's work? | In a terminal, as a diff beside git and the tests | Claude Code |
| In the editor, inside the file it changed | Cursor | |
| Which ecosystem are you already in? | Anthropic's — you already use its products | Claude Code |
| OpenAI's — you already use its products | Codex | |
| Is your next problem in one file, or spread across ten? | Mostly one file or one feature at a time | Claude Code |
| Spread across many files that only make sense together | Gemini CLI | |
| Are you choosing the seat, or the engine? | The seat — a top-tier agent, as it comes, is within reach | Claude Code |
| The engine — cost, availability, or a model you run yourself | Kimi | |
| Do you want to watch the work, or receive it? | Watch it, edit by edit | Cursor |
| Receive it — hand over a task, review a pull request | Codex | |
| Where does your work start: in a terminal, or in GitHub and your editor? | In a terminal, next to git and the tests | Claude Code |
| In GitHub issues and pull requests, and in your editor | GitHub Copilot | |
| Do you want an editor built around the agent, or an agent in the editor you already use? | A new editor, built around the agent | Cursor |
| The editor you already use, with an agent added | GitHub Copilot | |
| Do you want one vendor's agent, or one agent for any model? | One vendor's agent, built by the maker of its models | Claude Code |
| One open-source agent you can point at any provider | OpenCode | |
| Will you hand tasks off, or stay in the terminal the whole time? | Hand some tasks off and get a pull request back | Codex |
| Stay in the terminal, with as much of the project in view as possible | Gemini CLI |
The uncomfortable answer
You will learn more from two weeks with one of these than from any comparison, including these. They share a shape, so whichever you learn transfers to the rest in an afternoon — which means picking wrong costs you an afternoon, and deliberating costs you the month.
What you will not find here: model versions, prices, context-window sizes or benchmark tables. They are the four things every other comparison measures, and the four things that are wrong a month later. For what each vendor shipped most recently — the part that really does need a date — we maintain agents-compared , where a weekly job keeps it current instead of a person remembering to.