Cursor vs Zed

Overview

Cursor is an AI-first code editor built around agents rather than autocomplete alone. The desktop app, the Cursor CLI and the web surfaces share one agent that can read a codebase, plan a change, edit multiple files, run commands and verify the result. The company positions it as "your coding agent for building ambitious software" — you hand off tasks and focus on decisions and review.

Cursor ships its own models alongside third-party ones, and the interface is designed for long-running agent work: task lists, plans, diffs, checkpoints and a Mission Control-style grid of open windows.

Core capabilities

• Agent mode — describe a feature or bug; the agent searches the repo, proposes a plan, edits files, runs tests and iterates until the task is done.
• Plan first — a planning step turns a request into concrete tasks (for example "create MissionControlView.tsx", "update AppManager.tsx") before code is written, so you can correct direction early.
• Multi-file editing with review — every change appears as a reviewable diff; you can accept, reject or ask for revisions, and roll back to checkpoints.
• Codebase understanding — semantic indexing and codebase-wide search let the agent find the right files instead of guessing from open tabs.
• Terminal and tool use — the agent can run shell commands, read output, fix failures and repeat, which makes it useful for tests, migrations and build errors.
• Cursor CLI — the same agent in a terminal for headless or remote work, scriptable alongside editors and CI.
• Mission Control — a grid of live window previews for jumping between many open tasks and projects.
• Model choice — switch between frontier models per task, balancing speed, quality and cost.
• MCP support — connect external tools and data sources through the Model Context Protocol so the agent can use your own services.

Who it is for

Cursor is used by individual developers, startups and large engineering teams that want agentic coding inside a familiar editor. It is especially strong when a task spans many files or needs repeated test-fix loops, and when you want to run several agents in parallel and review their output.

Getting started

1. Download Cursor for macOS, Windows or Linux, or install the CLI.
2. Open a project and sign in.
3. Press the agent shortcut, describe the task and let Cursor plan.
4. Review the proposed tasks, then approve execution; inspect diffs as files change.
5. Run tests from the integrated terminal and ask the agent to fix failures.
6. For repeatable workflows, add project rules and connect MCP servers for your internal tools.

Pricing

Cursor has a free Hobby tier with limited agent requests, plus paid Pro, Pro+, Ultra, Teams and Enterprise plans. Paid plans add higher usage limits, team management, SSO and centralized billing. See cursor.com/pricing for current numbers.

Links

• Website: cursor.com
• Product: cursor.com/product
• CLI: cursor.com/cli
• MCP directory: cursor.com/docs/context/mcp/directory

Zed

Welcome to Zed, a high-performance, multiplayer code editor from the creators of Atom and Tree-sitter.

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Installation

On macOS, Linux, and Windows you can download Zed directly or install Zed via your local package manager (macOS/Linux/Windows).

Other platforms are not yet available:

• Web (tracking discussion)

Developing Zed

• Building Zed for macOS
• Building Zed for Linux
• Building Zed for Windows

Contributing

See CONTRIBUTING.md for ways you can contribute to Zed.

Also... we're hiring! Check out our jobs page for open roles.

Licensing

Zed source code is licensed primarily under GPL-3.0-or-later, with Apache-2.0 components where marked.

License information for third party dependencies must be correctly provided for CI to pass.

We use cargo-about to automatically comply with open source licenses. If CI is failing, check the following:

• Is it showing a no license specified error for a crate you've created? If so, add publish = false under [package] in your crate's Cargo.toml.
• Is the error failed to satisfy license requirements for a dependency? If so, first determine what license the project has and whether this system is sufficient to comply with this license's requirements. If you're unsure, ask a lawyer. Once you've verified that this system is acceptable add the license's SPDX identifier to the accepted array in script/licenses/zed-licenses.toml.
• Is cargo-about unable to find the license for a dependency? If so, add a clarification field at the end of script/licenses/zed-licenses.toml, as specified in the cargo-about book.

Sponsorship

Zed is developed by Zed Industries, Inc., a for-profit company.

If you’d like to financially support the project, you can do so via GitHub Sponsors.
Sponsorships go directly to Zed Industries and are used as general company revenue.
There are no perks or entitlements associated with sponsorship.