Cursor alternatives worth switching to.

The best Cursor alternatives in 2026 are GitHub Copilot, Cline and Kilo Code if you want to stay in VS Code, JetBrains AI with its Junie agent if you work in IntelliJ or PyCharm, and Xcode’s built-in agents for Apple development. If you want another AI-first editor, look at Devin Desktop (the new name for Windsurf), Kiro, Google Antigravity or Zed.

Plenty of developers are weighing a move. In JetBrains’ surveys, Cursor use at work fell from 18% in January 2026 to 12% in May to July, while Claude Code rose to 39%. Below, the options are grouped by what you want instead, with plans checked on each vendor’s own page.

One disclosure: Cyborb, a desktop AI agent from Orbioom, is our product. It appears below, labeled as ours, and it is not an editor.

01What are the best Cursor alternatives?

The best Cursor alternative depends on what you want to keep: your editor, your models or your budget.

Why people leave varies. Some want to stay in the IDE they already know. Some find usage-based billing hard to predict: Cursor’s own docs note that your model choice changes how quickly your included usage runs out. And since August 2026, Cursor’s maker Anysphere is owned by SpaceX, which some companies want to review before renewing.

02Which Cursor alternatives work in VS Code?

GitHub Copilot, Cline and Kilo Code all run inside VS Code, and so do the Codex and Claude Code extensions.

• GitHub Copilot gives you completions, agent mode and a CLI on every plan. Free includes 2,000 completions and 50 chat requests. Pro ($10) adds code review and a cloud agent that works in the background, and Pro+ ($39) can hand tasks to Claude or Codex agents (in preview).

• Cline is a free, open-source (Apache-2.0) extension and CLI. You bring your own API keys from OpenAI, Anthropic, Google and others.

• Kilo Code is open source (MIT) for VS Code, JetBrains and the terminal. Use your own keys or local models for free, or its gateway at provider rates plus a 5% fee on credit purchases.

• Codex and Claude Code both have extensions for VS Code and compatible editors. They come with ChatGPT Plus or Claude Pro, both $20 a month.

03What is the best Cursor alternative for JetBrains?

JetBrains’ own AI, with its Junie coding agent, is the natural choice, and GitHub Copilot and Kilo Code also have JetBrains plugins.

• JetBrains AI for individuals has three tiers: AI Free (3 AI credits per 30 days), AI Pro at $10 a month (10 credits) and AI Ultimate at $30 (35 credits). One credit is worth $1 of usage. AI Pro comes free with the All Products Pack and dotUltimate.

• Junie runs in JetBrains IDEs and Android Studio, in the terminal, and in GitHub and GitLab pipelines. It supports more than ten models with your own keys, at provider rates.

• Copilot is already common here: JetBrains’ survey found that 39% of Copilot users use it in JetBrains IDEs, among other places.

Windsurf’s JetBrains plugin also lives on under Devin, covered below.

04Is there a Cursor alternative for Xcode?

Yes, and it is Xcode itself. Apple announced Xcode 26.3 on February 3, 2026, with Anthropic’s Claude Agent and OpenAI’s Codex built in.

The agents can search documentation, explore your files, update project settings, and check their work by capturing Xcode Previews and iterating through builds. Xcode also exposes its tools through MCP (the Model Context Protocol), so other compatible agents can use them. Apple notes that Anthropic’s and OpenAI’s terms of service may apply. GitHub Copilot supports Xcode as well.

05Is Windsurf, Kiro or Antigravity better than Cursor?

None is better at everything. Each makes a different bet, and Windsurf is now called Devin Desktop.

• Devin Desktop is the new name for Windsurf, from Cognition. It keeps the full IDE and adds a command center for managing many agents. Models come from OpenAI, Anthropic, Google, SpaceXAI and open-source labs, plus Cognition’s SWE-2. Free, Pro at $20, Max at $200.

• Kiro, from AWS, bets on specs. It turns your prompt into requirements, a design and a sequenced task list, then implements them with parallel agents. It has an IDE, a CLI, a web interface and a mobile app. Free includes 50 credits; Pro is $20 for 1,000.

• Google Antigravity bets on price. Its free plan includes Gemini 3.8 Flash, Gemini 3.1 Pro, Claude Sonnet and Opus 4.6 and gpt-oss-120b, with unlimited Tab completions and weekly limits on agent use. Google AI Pro ($19.99) raises the limits.

• Zed bets on speed. It is an open-source editor written from scratch in Rust, for macOS, Linux and Windows. It can run outside agents such as Claude Agent, Codex and OpenCode. Personal is free, and Pro is $10.

If you like writing a plan before any code, Kiro fits; our guide to spec-driven development explains that way of working. If you want to manage several agents at once, try Devin Desktop.

06Is there a free Cursor alternative?

Yes. Copilot, Antigravity, Zed, Devin, Kiro and JetBrains AI all have free plans, and Cline and Kilo Code are free software if you bring a model.

Checked on September 28, 2026:

Free plans are for trying, not for full-time work. To run models on your own hardware, see our guide to running LLMs locally.

07Do you need an editor at all?

Not always. Agents such as Claude Code, Codex and OpenCode work across the whole project from a terminal or desktop app and show you the diff. You can pair one with any plain editor. Our Claude Code vs Codex vs Cursor comparison and our guide to Claude Code alternatives cover that side.

Cyborb, our product, belongs in this group, and it is not an editor. You describe the outcome; it plans the work, writes and runs the code until the tests pass, and can publish the result to a live address.

It suits people who would rather describe outcomes than edit files. It can also drive your Cursor, Claude, Codex or Grok account. It is in public beta, with a free plan and Pro at $20 a month.

08Which Cursor alternatives are no longer maintained?

Continue, Void and Roo Code, three open-source options that older lists still recommend. We checked each project’s own page and its GitHub repository on September 28, 2026.

Unmaintained code still runs, but it gets no security fixes and no support for new models. Kilo Code and Cline are actively maintained open-source extensions: both shipped new releases in the week we checked.

09Cursor alternatives compared

Checked on September 28, 2026. US list prices per month for one person.

For the wider field and more detail on each agent, see the best AI coding agents of 2026.

10How to switch from Cursor without losing your setup

Move your rules first. Cursor reads AGENTS.md as well as its own rules in .cursor/rules, and most other agents read AGENTS.md too. Copy anything that lives only in Cursor’s rules into one AGENTS.md at the root of your repository, and every tool you try gets the same instructions. Our AGENTS.md guide shows what to include.

Two more things to replace. If you relied on Bugbot for pull request reviews, compare the AI code review tools that work with any editor. And keep your working habits: the AI pair programming workflow of small steps, review and commit works the same in every tool here.

11FAQ

Read next: Claude Code vs Codex vs Cursor, or the full list of the best AI coding agents of 2026.