# Claude Code vs Cursor

Both write real code into real files. The difference is where you sit while it happens: a terminal next to your tests, or an editor with changes shown in place.

## The two options

### Claude Code (terminal)

An agent in your shell that can run your tests and read the failure.

Pick it if:
- You want the agent where git, tests and deploys already live
- You would rather read a diff than watch a file change under your cursor
- You want the loop closed: it edits, it runs the suite, it sees what broke

What will annoy you: A text interface with no file tree. If the terminal is new to you, that is a second thing to learn at the same time as the agent.

### Cursor (editor)

An editor with the agent inside it: changes appear in the file, with accept and reject buttons.

Pick it if:
- You already live in an editor and do not want to move
- You want to accept one part of a change and reject another by clicking
- Seeing an edit surrounded by the code it affects matters more to you than running commands

What will annoy you: Its reach stops at the editor. Running the suite, checking a branch, reading a log — it can suggest the command, but it is not the one running it and reading the answer.

## What is the same

- Both read your project, propose changes and write them to real files
- Both take project conventions from a file you keep in the repo
- Both are fast enough that the loop feels like a conversation
- Both require you to review the output — neither is a machine you can stop watching

## When something breaks, who runs the tests?

If you want the agent to run them, read the failure and try again without you relaying anything, that is the terminal one. If you would rather see the change sitting in the file and click through it hunk by hunk, that is the editor one. Nobody switches over code quality; people switch because the seat was wrong.

## Go deeper

- [Terminal agents vs editor agents](https://zero2vibecode.com/learn/ai-coding-tools/0-2-terminal-agents-vs-editor-agents)
- [Cursor and editor-first tools](https://zero2vibecode.com/learn/ai-coding-tools/1-3-cursor-and-editor-first-tools)

Source: https://zero2vibecode.com/compare/claude-code-vs-cursor