Building & Product

Claude Code, Codex or Cursor: which AI coding agent should I use?

Pick by the plan you already pay for and how you like to work: Claude Code to hand over long jobs, Codex to keep several tasks running in the cloud, Cursor to stay in an editor and steer. Claude Code comes with Claude Pro at $20 a month ($17 billed yearly) or Max from $100, works in the terminal, VS Code, JetBrains, desktop and web, and leads Stack Overflow's 2026 survey of coding agents at 66%. Codex comes with every ChatGPT plan, limited on Free and Go ($8), fuller on Plus ($20) and Pro (from $100), on the web, CLI, IDE and iOS. Cursor, now owned by SpaceX, is an editor: Plus at $8 uses only Grok models, and Premium at $30 adds other makers' models billed at usage. Google Antigravity has a free plan. Rule: if you pay for Claude or ChatGPT, start with its agent, and choose Cursor only if you want to work line by line in an editor.

On the AI map, 29 October 2026 Coding agents App builders

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8 resources.

🛠 Tool

Anthropic's own plan page: Free, Pro at $20 a month ($17 billed yearly), Max from $100 and Ultra at $200; Claude Code, Research and Claude in Chrome are on Pro and above, not on Free.

Claude plans and pricing

Anthropic Nov 2026

Open claude.com →
🛠 Tool

OpenAI's Codex plan page: Free for quick tasks, Go at $8, Plus at $20 (web, CLI, IDE and iOS), Pro from $100 in $100, $200 and $500 tiers, Business at $20 a user billed yearly.

Codex pricing

OpenAI Nov 2026

Open learn.chatgpt.com →
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Cursor's plans: Free, Plus at $8 a month on Grok models only, Premium at $30 with other makers' models billed at usage, Super $100, Ultra $200, Teams $30 a user.

Cursor pricing

Cursor (SpaceX) Nov 2026

Open cursor.com →

More in Vibe Coding

Why can non-technical founders now build software with AI? 19 → What tools should I start with (Cursor, Claude Code, Lovable, Replit, Bolt, v0)? 10 → How do real founders ship an MVP with AI in days instead of months? 19 → What are the limits, when do I still need a real engineer? 21 → What actually counts as vibe coding, and how is it different from serious AI-assisted engineering? 18 → How do I plan and prompt so the AI builds what I actually want? 20 → How do I keep my vibe-coded app from getting hacked? 22 → How do I get my vibe-coded prototype ready for real users? 20 → How do I add accounts, a database, and payments to my vibe-coded app? 19 → What do I do when the AI gets stuck, loops, or breaks things it already built? 18 → How much does vibe coding really cost, and how do I stop burning credits? 20 → Do I still need to learn to code, or is prompting enough? 16 → Can vibe-coded products become real businesses? 21 → Can I vibe code a mobile app and get it into the App Store? 18 → How do I avoid losing work? Version control for founders who don't code 20 → Lovable, Replit, Bolt or Base44: which AI app builder should I use? 9 → How do I vibe code an app or website with AI, step by step? 8 → How do I write a spec or PRD that an AI coding agent like Claude Code can build from? 7 → How do I get started with Claude Code? 7 →

Also in Starting Up

The same ground, over in Build the product, our Starting Up track.

I'm non-technical, do I actually need a technical co-founder? 18 → I'm not a designer, how do I make my product not look terrible? 18 →
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