Claude Code vs Cursor: pricing, setup, rules and MCP compared

Claude Code vs Cursor comes down to where you want the agent to live and how you want to pay: Claude Code is Anthropic’s agent for the terminal, IDE, desktop and web, included in paid Claude plans from $17 a month billed annually (Claude pricing), while Cursor is a coding agent built around its own editor, with a CLI and plans from $0 to $200 a month (Cursor pricing). You can also run both together, because Claude Code installs into Cursor.

Applies to: Claude Code documentation, Claude plans and pricing, the Cursor documentation and Cursor pricing as published on October 26, 2026. Last checked: October 26, 2026.

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Claude Code vs Cursor at a glance

Where each tool runs

Claude Code’s overview says it “runs on several surfaces: the terminal, IDE extensions, a desktop app, and the web”. The IDE section lists an “Install for Cursor” option next to VS Code, and a JetBrains plugin that requires the Claude Code CLI. The web version runs in your browser “with no local setup”.

Cursor starts from the editor, and its CLI overview adds a terminal agent with the same modes as the editor:

In the Cursor CLI you can prepend & to a message to push the conversation to a Cloud Agent and pick it up later on web or mobile (Cursor CLI). For a wider look at the editor side, see Cursor or VS Code.

Install commands

Claude Code, from the Claude Code overview.

macOS, Linux and WSL:

curl -fsSL https://claude.ai/install.sh | bash

Windows PowerShell:

irm https://claude.ai/install.ps1 | iex

Homebrew:

brew install --cask claude-code

WinGet:

winget install Anthropic.ClaudeCode

Cursor CLI, from the Cursor CLI overview.

macOS, Linux and WSL:

curl https://cursor.com/install -fsS | bash

Windows PowerShell:

irm 'https://cursor.com/install?win32=true' | iex

The Cursor CLI then starts with agent (Cursor CLI). After installing Claude Code, you log in by running claude and following the browser prompts (Claude Code setup).

Scripts and CI

Both tools have a print mode for non-interactive runs. Claude Code’s overview shows piping a log into claude -p:

tail -200 app.log | claude -p "Slack me if you see any anomalies"

The Cursor CLI overview shows agent -p with a model choice:

agent -p "find and fix performance issues" --model "gpt-5"

Cursor also documents command sandboxing with /sandbox or the --sandbox flag (enabled or disabled) (Cursor CLI).

Pricing and usage limits

Claude Code. Anthropic’s pricing page says “Claude Code is included in all paid plans” and shares the same usage limits as the rest of the plan. Pro costs $17 a month with the annual discount ($200 billed up front) or $20 billed monthly; Max starts at $100 a month with 5x or 20x more usage than Pro. The setup page states that the free Claude plan does not include Claude Code, which needs a Pro, Max, Team, Enterprise or Console account.

Anthropic’s Help Center says Pro and Max have a five-hour session limit and a weekly limit, shared across Claude and Claude Code. For a fuller breakdown, see how much Claude Code costs.

Cursor. The Cursor pricing page lists Free at $0, Plus at $8, Premium at $30, Super at $100 and Ultra at $200 a month, Teams from $30 per user and custom Enterprise pricing. Every tier includes a usage pool “shared across Cursor and Grok” that refreshes weekly. Cursor says Plus includes Grok models only, and third-party models are available at API list price, billed separately (Cursor pricing). The tier details are in our Cursor AI pricing guide.

The practical difference: a Claude plan pays for Claude models in Claude Code and the Claude apps from one pool, while using Claude models inside Cursor’s own agent is billed as third-party usage on top of a Cursor plan (Cursor pricing).

Rules, skills and hooks

Claude Code reads CLAUDE.md at the start of every session, and “if your repository already has an AGENTS.md for other coding agents, Claude Code can read that in place of a CLAUDE.md” (Claude Code overview). Claude Code skills live in .claude/skills/<name>/SKILL.md for a project or ~/.claude/skills/<name>/SKILL.md for all your projects (Claude Code skills).

Cursor’s project rules are .mdc files in .cursor/rules, and “if you prefer plain markdown, use AGENTS.md instead” (Cursor rules). Our Cursor rules guide covers the format. Cursor hooks are defined in .cursor/hooks.json for a project or ~/.cursor/hooks.json for your user (Cursor hooks).

Cursor reads some Claude Code configuration directly:

• Skills: “Cursor also loads skills from Claude and Codex directories: .claude/skills/, .codex/skills/, ~/.claude/skills/, and ~/.codex/skills/” (Cursor skills).
• Hooks: Claude Code hooks from .claude/settings.local.json, .claude/settings.json and ~/.claude/settings.json load when “Include Third-Party Plugins, Skills, and Other Configs” is enabled in Cursor Settings, and “the setting is on by default” (Cursor third-party hooks).

MCP servers

Claude Code adds a remote server from the command line. The Claude Code MCP docs give this example:

claude mcp add --transport http notion https://mcp.notion.com/mcp

Server definitions can also live in .mcp.json or ~/.claude.json (Claude Code MCP). See the Claude Code MCP guide for scopes and transports.

Cursor installs servers from its Customize page or from mcp.json, and supports the stdio, SSE and Streamable HTTP transports (Cursor MCP). Its remote server example:

// MCP server using HTTP or SSE - runs on a server
{
  "mcpServers": {
    "server-name": {
      "url": "http://localhost:3000/mcp",
      "headers": {
        "API_KEY": "value"
      }
    }
  }
}

Using Claude Code inside Cursor

You do not have to pick one. Claude Code’s overview offers “Install for Cursor” for its IDE extension, and Anthropic’s Help Center says a Pro or Max plan “also covers Claude Code in supported IDEs, including VS Code, Cursor and other VS Code forks”. Usage in the IDE counts toward the same limits as Claude and Claude Code.

Which to choose

Based on what each vendor documents:

• Claude Code fits if you already pay for a Claude plan, mostly want Claude models, and work in the terminal, a JetBrains IDE, the desktop app or the browser (overview, pricing).
• Cursor fits if you want an editor built around its agent, a free tier to start, models from the plan’s usage pool plus third-party models at API list price, and Cloud Agents you can hand work to (Cursor pricing, Cursor CLI).
• Both works if you like Cursor as the editor but want your Claude plan to cover the agent: install the Claude Code extension in Cursor (Help Center).