Best Cursor Alternatives
The top-ranked Cursor alternative is Windsurf (Freemium). The best free option is Visual Studio Code.
Cursor is a popular AI-native code editor, but developers weigh alternatives on model choice, pricing, privacy, and editor familiarity. Some want agentic terminals, others plugins for their existing IDE. These alternatives cover AI coding editors and assistants.
1Windsurf
FreemiumAI coding assistant and editor (formerly Codeium) with free completions and agent flows.
2An AI pair programmer that suggests code across editors.
3Claude Code
SubscriptionAnthropic's terminal-based agentic coding tool that reads, edits, and runs your codebase.
Lightweight, extensible code editor with strong Swift and mobile tooling support.
Zed
FreeHigh-performance, collaborative code editor written in Rust.
JetBrains AI Assistant
FreemiumAI completion, chat, and refactoring built into JetBrains IDEs.
Sourcegraph Cody
FreemiumAI assistant using full-codebase context for accurate chat and code generation.
Continue
Open SourceOpen-source AI code assistant that connects any model to VS Code and JetBrains.
Privacy-focused AI code completion with support for self-hosted and custom models.
aider
Open SourceOpen-source terminal AI pair programmer that edits code directly in your git repo.
An online IDE with AI Agent that builds and deploys apps.
Trae
FreeByteDance's free AI-powered code editor with agentic capabilities.
Cursor alternatives: FAQ
What is the best alternative to Cursor?
Windsurf is ranked first on this list (Freemium). The ranking combines our base score with readers' votes, so it can change.
What is the best free alternative to Cursor?
The highest-ranked free or open-source options here are Visual Studio Code, Zed and Continue.
Which Cursor alternatives work on Mac?
Windsurf, GitHub Copilot, Claude Code and Visual Studio Code run on macOS.
Which Cursor alternatives work on Linux?
Windsurf, GitHub Copilot, Claude Code and Visual Studio Code run on Linux.
Are there Cursor alternatives for Android?
Yes: Replit have Android apps.
Know a Cursor alternative we missed? Suggest it — we review submissions before they go live.