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It's a split decision.
Choose Augment Code when you want agents to carry work from tickets through review, security fixes and incident response, with engineers approving at checkpoints. Choose Cursor for an AI coding agent in a desktop app or CLI, with model selection and parallel cloud agents. Augment’s plans charge per team and include usage allowances; Cursor has a free tier and individual and team plans, but third-party model usage can be billed separately. They solve different workflow problems.
01Side by side
| Augment Code | Cursor | |
|---|---|---|
| Pricing model | $20 or $100/team monthly; pay-as-you-go top-ups | Free; paid tiers $8–$200 monthly, Teams $30+/user |
| Free tier | No free plan; Standard starts at $20/team monthly | Free plan with limited agent and Chat requests |
| Self-hosting | Self-hostable; Enterprise offers multi-region compute | Self-hosting availability not published |
| CLI | CLI, MCP and native tools on paid plans | CLI available via curl; terminal coding workflow |
| Integrations | GitHub, GitLab, Slack, Linear, Jira and webhooks | Slack, GitHub, terminal and model providers |
| Deployment model | Cosmos coordinates SDLC agents with engineer checkpoints | Desktop, CLI and parallel cloud agents |
| Platforms | Web | macOS, web, CLI and Slack |
| Limits and scaling | 50 seats and sessions; Enterprise offers unlimited | Usage multipliers by tier; request caps not published |
Augment Code Choose Augment Code if
- Choose Augment Code if you need agents across the SDLC.
- Choose Augment Code if tickets should flow into reviewed PRs.
- Choose Augment Code if you need self-hosting and approval checkpoints.
Cursor Choose Cursor if
- Choose Cursor if you want an AI coding desktop app and CLI.
- Choose Cursor if you want to select among multiple model providers.
- Choose Cursor if a free tier matters for evaluation.
02Pricing at real usage
Augment Code has no free plan listed. Standard costs $20 per team monthly and includes $20 of monthly usage across LLM, Context Engine and compute; Business costs $100 per team and includes $100 of usage. Both include up to 50 seats and 50 concurrent sessions. Extra usage is pay-as-you-go, valid for 12 months, with a 40% service fee on LLM usage and no fee on compute. Enterprise pricing is custom.
Cursor lists a free tier with limited agent and Chat requests. Its paid tiers run from Plus at $8 monthly to Ultra at $200; Teams starts at $30 per user monthly. The listed Plus features focus on Grok products, while Premium at $30 lists cloud agents and AI code reviews. Third-party models are billed separately at API list price; usage top-offs are available. Model your expected usage before comparing headline prices.
03API, SDKs and integration
Augment’s Cosmos platform connects agents to SDLC workflows. Its homepage lists native triggers for GitHub, GitLab, Slack, Linear, Jira and schedules, plus typed webhooks for other tools. Paid plans include CLI access, MCP and native tools. Cursor offers a desktop app, CLI, Slack workflows and GitHub pull-request review. Its homepage also lists model choices from OpenAI, Anthropic, Gemini, SpaceXAI and Cursor’s Composer. The CLI is installed with a curl command, per the product description.
Both products describe integrations and agent interfaces, but neither vendor publishes a public, language-specific SDK or application API for these workflows. That matters if you plan to embed either agent in an internal service rather than trigger it from a supported tool. Confirm authentication, event delivery, failure handling and audit requirements with the vendor before making that integration a production dependency.
04Open source, self-hosting and lock-in
Augment Code is listed as self-hostable, and its Enterprise plan includes custom-sized, multi-region compute. Cursor’s self-hosting availability is not published. Neither vendor publishes an open-source license for the core product, so do not plan on forking either agent platform based on these terms.
The product descriptions do not specify a data-export format or a migration path for agent memory, workflow definitions or usage history. Augment’s Experts and Context Engine, and Cursor’s agent workflows and model-specific setup, can become part of team processes. Before rollout, ask how to export configuration and logs, what happens to stored context at contract end, and whether workflows can be moved to another provider. Keep prompts, tests and approval rules in your own repositories where possible.
Questions people ask
How do you use multiple Cursor agents in VS Code?
Cursor describes cloud agents that can run in parallel, but it is presented as a coding product with its own desktop app, web access and CLI—not as a VS Code extension. If you mean multiple editor cursors rather than AI agents, that is a separate editor feature.
Is VS Code better than Cursor?
They are different choices: Cursor is an AI coding agent offered through a desktop app, CLI and web workflows. The product details here do not establish a feature-by-feature comparison with VS Code. Choose based on whether you want Cursor’s agent workflows or your existing editor setup.
What is the best Cursor agent for coding?
Cursor lists model choices from OpenAI, Anthropic, Gemini, SpaceXAI and its own Composer. The best fit depends on the task and your usage allowance; the product details do not publish comparative benchmark results. Check model availability and separate billing before choosing.
Is Cline better than Cursor?
That depends on your required integrations, model setup, deployment and cost. Cursor’s stated features include parallel cloud agents, a CLI, model selection, and Slack and GitHub workflows. A fair comparison also needs current Cline pricing and capabilities for the same tasks.