I switched my primary development environment to Cursor about six months ago. Before that, I’d been on VS Code with GitHub Copilot for a couple of years. Here’s what I’ve actually learned.
What Cursor Is
Cursor is a fork of VS Code with deep AI integration. If you use VS Code, the transition is nearly seamless — all your extensions, keybindings, and settings carry over. The difference is how AI is woven into the environment.
Where GitHub Copilot gives you inline suggestions as you type, Cursor gives you:
- Inline AI chat that can see your codebase
Cmd+Kinline editing with natural language- A full sidebar chat with project context
- The ability to reference files, methods, and symbols in your prompts
The model integration has supported both Claude and GPT-4. I mostly use Claude through Cursor, which has become my preference for coding tasks.
What Actually Changed in My Workflow
The biggest change: I write less boilerplate.
Setting up a new Rails API endpoint used to mean writing the controller action, the route, the serializer, the tests, and the service object. With Cursor, I describe what I’m building and it generates the scaffold. I review and modify, but I’m no longer typing all of that from scratch.
On a recent project, I tracked the time on a particularly pattern-heavy feature. Generated in Cursor vs. written by hand: 12 minutes versus an estimated 45-50 minutes. The time went into review and the pieces that needed custom thinking — not into the boilerplate.
The Cmd+K inline edit is where I use it most.
Select code, describe what I want it to do differently. “Add error handling that logs to Sentry and returns a clean JSON error response.” “Refactor this method to use early returns.” “Add a comment explaining what this regex does.”
This sounds small but it’s where the efficiency stacks up. These are 30-second tasks that used to take 3-5 minutes each.
Codebase-aware questions save significant research time.
“What’s the pattern used for background job error handling in this project?” used to require me to search through files and read the existing code. Now I ask and Cursor finds it. This is especially useful when I’m working in an unfamiliar part of a codebase.
What’s Frustrating
It’s wrong often enough to require vigilance.
Cursor is confident. It will generate code that uses methods that don’t exist, makes assumptions about your database schema that are wrong, or takes a shortcut that looks fine but fails in edge cases. You cannot turn your brain off.
I’ve caught bugs in Cursor-generated code that would have passed quick review. A method being called on a nil object in an edge case. A database query that would N+1 under load. A test that passed because both the test and the code had the same incorrect assumption.
The developer review step is non-negotiable. Treat everything Cursor generates like a PR from a smart junior developer: good, but needs review.
Context window limitations on large projects.
Cursor is better with full project context when the codebase is smaller. On large Rails applications with hundreds of files, it sometimes misses relevant patterns that exist elsewhere in the codebase. I mitigate this by being explicit: “following the pattern in app/services/order_service.rb.”
The AI conversation chat sometimes hallucinates library APIs.
Asking “what’s the correct syntax for X in version Y of Z gem” sometimes produces confident wrong answers about methods that don’t exist. Always verify against actual documentation when you’re using syntax you’re not confident about.
The Net Development Speed Impact
After six months of careful use, my honest assessment:
On a typical feature, I’m 25-40% faster depending on how pattern-heavy the work is. CRUD-heavy features with standard patterns see the biggest improvement. Novel business logic features see the smallest improvement.
Across a multi-week project, this compounds into delivering 2-3 weeks of work in the same calendar time. That’s real and significant for clients.
Is It Worth the Cost?
Cursor costs $20/month for the Pro plan. For a professional developer, this pays for itself inside the first hour of the month. Not a difficult calculation.
My Recommendation
If you’re a professional developer who hasn’t tried Cursor, try it. Give it two weeks to build habits — the first few days are adjusting to a different workflow.
If you’re evaluating AI tools for your development team, Cursor is where I’d start. It’s built for developers who want to stay in control of their code while moving faster.
Working with me means your project gets built with tools like this, by a developer with 20 years of experience who knows how to use them responsibly. Let’s talk about your project.