An AI code editor is only as useful as the models behind it, and for two years Cursor's pitch was that you never had to choose: Claude, GPT and Gemini sat behind one $20 monthly bill, inside a VS Code fork you already knew.
On October 12, 2026, Cursor's pricing page switched new customers to "The X Subscription", sold by X Subscription Corp. Its $8 Plus plan runs Grok models only, and on every tier, Cursor's help center says, third-party models "like Claude or GPT, aren't included in your plan" and are "billed at API list prices from the first use." That landed eight weeks after SpaceX closed its acquisition of Cursor on August 14, 2026, and six weeks after OpenAI said it would cut off Cursor's access to its models, with a proposed shutoff date of November 12, 2026.
What Changed at Cursor, and for Whom
Existing subscribers are not forced over. Cursor's X Subscription help page says "Switching is optional" and that the switch "is permanent," so a legacy Pro customer at $20 a month keeps Claude and GPT in their allowance for now. A new signup gets Grok in the allowance and a prepaid balance for everything else.
The OpenAI part applies to everyone. OpenAI's announcement on August 28, 2026, said it intends "to wind down our contract providing OpenAI models to Cursor," and its help article notes that Cursor's bring-your-own-key option does not cover Tab, Auto, cloud agents or the CLI. As of October 13, 2026, Cursor's model docs list GPT-5.6 but no GPT-6 model, while Copilot and Devin Desktop already list GPT-6.1 Sol.
What Developers Actually Use and Why They Switch
The 2026 Stack Overflow Developer Survey, published October 6, 2026, with more than 30,000 respondents, names two leaders for coding agents: Claude Code at 66% and GitHub Copilot at 59%. Of 13,144 people asked whether they switched AI tools for work in the past year, 33.7% had not and 25.1% switched for better output, while 3.3% left a tool that "became too expensive, limited, or unavailable" and 2.1% wanted "access to a preferred model or provider." Cursor's changes hit exactly those last two reasons.
Every entry below is judged against one worked example: a developer paying $20 a month for Cursor Pro who uses Claude Sonnet and GPT in agent mode and wants that workflow without a per-token surprise. All prices and versions were checked on October 13, 2026.
Claude Code: The Survey Leader, Claude Only
Claude Code is Anthropic's coding agent for the terminal, VS Code and its forks, JetBrains IDEs, a desktop app and the web, and the most-used coding agent in the 2026 survey.
It is the cleanest replacement for the Claude half of the worked example: the same $20 a month buys Claude Pro, which includes Claude Code, and on Anthropic's API its aliases resolve to Opus 5.5, Sonnet 5.5 and Haiku 5.5. Usage resets on a rolling five-hour window with weekly limits, shared with Claude chat.
What it does not do: Claude models only, so GPT needs a second tool, and the public repo is "All rights reserved," not open source.
Pricing: Pro $20/month ($17 billed annually) · Max $100 or $200/month · v2.1.296 as of October 9, 2026
GitHub Copilot: Credits Across Every IDE
GitHub Copilot is an extension rather than an editor, which suits a Cursor user who wants to stay in VS Code: it also runs in Visual Studio, JetBrains IDEs, Xcode, Neovim, Eclipse and Zed, plus a CLI and a cloud agent.
Since June 1, 2026, every plan bills in GitHub AI Credits worth $0.01 each, while code completions stay unlimited on paid plans. The model list runs through GPT-6.1 Sol, Claude Opus 5.5, Gemini Flash and Grok.
What it does not do: Pro gets "a selection of models" and Pro+ gets "premium models," no Gemini Pro model is listed, and unused credits reset each month.
Pricing: Free · Pro $10/month (1,500 AI credits) · Pro+ $39/month (7,000) · Max $100/month · Business $19/seat
OpenAI Codex: The GPT Half, With an Open CLI
OpenAI Codex is the GPT counterpart: a CLI, an IDE extension for VS Code, Cursor, JetBrains and Xcode, and a cloud agent that keeps working while your laptop sleeps. OpenAI's own help article points Cursor users to it.
ChatGPT Plus at $20 a month includes Codex with GPT-6.1 Sol and GPT-6 Luna, estimated at 15 to 160 local GPT-6.1 Sol messages per five hours. The CLI is Apache 2.0 with 129,030 GitHub stars.
What it does not do: OpenAI models only, the IDE extension and cloud agent are closed source, and API-key mode loses the cloud features.
Pricing: Plus $20/month · Pro $100, $200 or $500/month · Business $25/user · CLI rust-v0.162.1 as of October 9, 2026
Devin Desktop: Windsurf, Renamed
Devin Desktop is what Windsurf became: Cognition acquired Windsurf in July 2025 and renamed the editor on June 2, 2026. It is a full IDE with an agent manager, compatible with Windsurf and VS Code, on Mac, Windows and Linux.
For the worked example it is the most direct swap: Pro is $20 a month and includes "frontier models from OpenAI, Claude, Gemini, and SpaceXAI, plus leading open source models," with quotas that refresh daily and weekly.
What it does not do: usage past the quota bills at API list prices, new Teams plans dropped SSO, and the new Devin Local agent lacks Memories and Workflows.
Pricing: Free · Pro $20/month · Max $200/month · Teams $80/month plus $40 per seat
Google Antigravity: Free Gemini, Claude on Pro
Google Antigravity launched on November 18, 2025, as an IDE and now also ships a desktop agent app (since May 19, 2026), a CLI called agy, and extensions for VS Code, JetBrains, Zed and Xcode.
It has the strongest free tier here: $0 with Gemini 3.8 Flash and weekly limits. Google AI Pro at $19.99 a month adds Claude Sonnet 5.5 and Opus 5.5, and Ultra adds Gemini 4 Argon, released October 13, 2026.
What it does not do: no GPT frontier models, no bring-your-own-key support, and Google's terms forbid driving it from third-party tools.
Pricing: Free · Google AI Pro $19.99/month · Ultra $99.99 or $199.99/month · CLI v1.3.1 as of October 7, 2026
Zed: Open Source Editor, Your Own Keys
Zed is not a VS Code fork: it is an editor written from scratch in Rust, and the open-source pick for leaving the fork model entirely.
The free plan gives unlimited AI use with your own keys for Anthropic, OpenAI, Google, Mistral, DeepSeek, xAI or local models through Ollama, and it runs Claude Code, Codex and Copilot as external agents. A ChatGPT Plus subscription works too. Pro at $10 a month adds $5 of hosted tokens.
What it does not do: VS Code extensions do not carry over, hosted usage past $5 costs API price plus 10%, and telemetry is on until you turn it off.
License: GPL-3.0-or-later, 91,678 stars, v1.23.3 as of October 12, 2026 · Pricing: Free · Pro $10/month · Business $30/seat
Cline: An Open Agent Inside the Editor You Keep
Cline is an open-source agent extension for VS Code, VSCodium, Windsurf and even Cursor itself, plus a CLI and a desktop app.
There is no subscription: bring keys for Anthropic, OpenAI, Gemini, OpenRouter or Bedrock, run local models through Ollama, or sign in with a Claude Code or Codex subscription. ClinePass at $9.99 a month covers open-weight models such as Kimi, DeepSeek and Qwen.
What it does not do: a heavy month costs whatever the tokens cost, JetBrains support is early access, and telemetry is on by default.
License: Apache 2.0, 70,274 stars, v4.1.24 as of October 13, 2026 · Pricing: Free with your own keys · ClinePass $9.99/month
Kiro: Spec-First, on Credits
Kiro is AWS's agentic IDE, built on Code OSS so VS Code settings and Open VSX extensions import. It turns prompts into specs before writing code, and you do not need an AWS account to sign in.
Pro at $20 a month buys 1,000 credits across OpenAI, Anthropic and open-weight models, with per-model multipliers: Claude Sonnet 5.5 costs 1.3x the Auto rate and GPT-5.6 Sol 4.4x.
What it does not do: no documented bring-your-own-key option, a proprietary IDE, credits that do not roll over, and content collection from individual users unless you opt out.
Pricing: Free (50 credits) · Pro $20/month · Pro+ $40/month · Power $200/month · IDE 1.2.56 as of October 8, 2026
Side by Side
| Tool | Type | Entry paid plan | Claude | GPT | Open source |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Claude Code | CLI, extension, app | $20/month | Yes | No | No |
| GitHub Copilot | Extension, CLI | $10/month | Yes | Yes | No |
| OpenAI Codex | CLI, extension, cloud | $20/month | No | Yes | CLI only (Apache 2.0) |
| Devin Desktop | Editor | $20/month | Yes | Yes | No |
| Google Antigravity | Editor, CLI | $19.99/month | Pro and up | GPT-OSS only | No |
| Zed | Editor | $0 with your keys | Yes | Yes | Yes (GPL-3.0) |
| Cline | Extension, CLI | $0 with your keys | Yes | Yes | Yes (Apache 2.0) |
| Kiro | Editor, CLI | $20/month | Yes | Yes | No |
| Cursor, new customers | Editor | $8/month | API price | API price | No |
How to Choose Without Migrating Twice
- Check which Cursor plan you are on. A legacy plan keeps working until you switch, and the switch cannot be undone.
- List the models you used last month. Mostly Claude points to Claude Code, mostly GPT to Codex, and both to Devin Desktop, Copilot Pro+ or Kiro.
- Price your own tokens before picking Zed or Cline. They cost nothing until they call a model, then exactly what the provider charges.
- Keep your editor if you can. Copilot, Cline, Claude Code and Codex all run inside VS Code and JetBrains.
- Move shared instructions into AGENTS.md first. Codex, Copilot's coding agent, Zed and Devin all read it, so the next switch costs less.
Which One Should You Actually Use?
You used Cursor mostly for Claude: Claude Code on Claude Pro, at the $20 you already pay.
You need Claude and GPT at a flat price: Devin Desktop Pro at $20 a month is the closest match to old Cursor Pro, or Copilot Pro+ at $39 if you would rather keep your IDE.
You do not want a subscription: Cline in VS Code or Zed with your own API keys, both open source, with local models through Ollama.
Your company standardizes on GitHub or AWS: Copilot Business at $19 a seat, or Kiro if your team writes specs first.
Conclusion
What changed in 2026 is not editor quality but who owns the editor and which models its owner can sell you. Before you renew any AI coding tool, ask: if the vendor loses access to your favorite model, does your plan get cheaper, pricier, or quietly worse? Tools that run on your own keys, or inside the editor you already use, have the best answer.
Related DevToolLab Tools
- AGENTS.md Generator - one instructions file that Codex, Copilot's coding agent, Zed and Devin all read.
- AI IDE Config Generator - generate the CLAUDE.md,
.cursorrulesor AGENTS.md file each tool expects. - MCP Server Config Generator - rebuild your MCP server setup for Claude Code, VS Code or another client.
- LLM Token Cost Calculator - estimate a month of Claude or GPT tokens at API list price before you pick a plan.
Related Guides
- GitHub Copilot vs Cursor vs Windsurf, the broader AI coding assistant roundup.
- 9 Open Source Claude Code Alternatives, for terminal agents you can self-host.
- What Is AGENTS.md? Inside 24 Real Repos, how the shared instructions file works.
- Best LLM Gateways and API Routers, for routing your own API keys.