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Comment by a13n | Hacker News Reader

I predict that in 6-12 months we'll all be back on VS Code. I would hate to have Microsoft as a direct competitor, especially in a space they care so much about (developers + AI).

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This thesis has existed since Cursor first started, and the gap between them and VSCode has only widened since then. It’s worth spending some time thinking about why that may be before having such strong conviction about their demise.

What are your thoughts on why it might be?

* a small, focused team moves faster

* cursor has great taste and that's hard to replicate at MS scale

* Microsoft had allegiance to OpenAI early on which reduced their experimentation with other models

> the gap between them and VSCode has only widened since then

What is in this gap? Do you know of any good resources that outline the features that Cursor provides over VSCode with Copilot?

have you tried using either of them?

You can't really name a list of features that cursor has that copilot doesn't. It's more like: Cursor appears to heavily dogfood their features, VSCode's copilot seems to check the feature boxes, but each one sucks to use. The autocomplete popups are jarring. The copilot agent doesn't seem to gather the correct context. They still haven't figured out tool calling. It's really something you have to try rather than look at a checklist of features.

I think your knowledge is a bit outdated? Cursor definetley still has an edge, but VSCode Github Copilot UI has come a long way and using the same underlying models for both the results are fairly similar and change only in ux niceties

stuff like background agents cursor is way ahead.

Zed Editor is a nice contender too

I tried copilot agent like 3 weeks ago. If that much has changed since then, props to Microsoft.

Zed is very nice, it’s just a totally different workflow. I think people who work in a domain where AI is not particularly strong would be better off with Zed, since Cursor’s way of reviewing edits is a little clumsy.

yeah tbh copilot is really not -that great- compared to both cursor or zed.

But i tihnk that's UX polish they can fix it if they cared

we'll see i guess maybe MS prefers to just buy them out?

Cursor getting out of price tho

What about on the speed front? VS Code's biggest problem is with how slow it is. I'd already be done and on to the next (and maybe the next thing after that) by the time it finally gets around to things. I like the concept, but I only have so much time in a day.

If you find VS Code to be slow, you might give Zed a try. I have been using Zed with my Claude API key and it's really something.

You can literally download and try it for free. Cursor is just better, its insane that Microsoft screwed up AGAIN!

You mean the gap in vscode compatibility?

Yeah idk what "gap" every cursor user talks about. I installed cursor, it didn't work on wsl closed that chapter asap. Went to windsurf, enjoyed it but it's credit usage scheme was very confusing, nearly pressed the buy button until I went back to try copilot.

Copilot is good enough, even the free tier gets whatever annoying tasks I don't want to do done. Anything more complex I already have a Gemini and ChatGPT subscription so I just do the old copy paste.

Their main supplier (Anthropic) is also a direct competitor (Claude Code). I love Cursor but boy, what a tough place to be in. It's hard to see how it works out for them in the end.

Code isn't as strictly competitive as the IDE's are. Code even has solid VS Code integration. It's effectively a plugin, just one that isn't tied to any one IDE.

Cursor+Gemini MAX is pretty good these days. It seems like Claude Code and C+GM leapfrog each other every month or two.

Cursor has a lot of potential leverage owning the developer and the training data streams and commoditizing the underlying model.

Agreed. There's no way Cursor can stay ahead when they really don't have much of a moat.

Don't get me wrong, I love Cursor but is seems Microsoft could just rip it all off and put it in base VS Code.

Which they have basically done and are closing in on them fast

You and I have not tried the same vscode

The new memory feature on Cursor is going to keep me locked in for the foreseeable future. It's _really_ good.

Have you used copilot recently? It is absolutely useless these days.

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