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.
Published · Updated
Cursor
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 reading a diff in a terminal
What will annoy you
Its home is the editor window. The agent runs commands too — tests, installs, builds, under the approval rules you set — but you review its work hunk by hunk inside files, which is the whole appeal until a change spans many files and the clicking becomes the work. Cursor also has a terminal CLI, and Cloud Agents that work on their own branch in a cloud machine and return a pull request — each a different seat with different habits.
Codex
The same terminal loop, plus a mode where you hand over a task and get back a pull request.
Pick it if
- Your work splits into well-specified chunks you can describe up front
- You already review other people's code and are comfortable judging a diff cold
- You want work happening while you are doing something else
What will annoy you
Two modes means two mental models. In the remote one there is no conversation to rescue a vague request — you find out at the end.
What is the same
- Both produce real changes to real files that you review before they count
- Both reward a clearly stated request far more than a clever one
- Both leave you responsible for what ships
Do you want to watch the work, or receive it?
Both offer both, so this is about which one you will reach for by default. Cursor's centre is supervision — every hunk passes under your eye, and its Cloud Agents are the side door for handing something off. Codex puts the hand-off up front as one of its two modes — you write the task well or you get the wrong thing. If you are still learning what good output looks like, take the supervision; the feedback is the education, and handing the work away removes exactly that.
Still undecided?
Then the honest answer is that either will do, and the two weeks you spend using one will teach you more than another comparison. Both of these are the same shape underneath — give context, read the diff, iterate — so the one you learn transfers to the other in an afternoon.
Go deeper
More comparisons
No model versions, prices or benchmark scores on this page — they are wrong within weeks and decide nothing durable. For what each vendor shipped most recently, we keep agents-compared, where a weekly job maintains the dated part.