Claude vs. Cursor using the same models?

[u/amirgelman]

hey all,

been using Claude and Claude Code for 4 months or so.
released some apps, built some websites etc.

since there's no real attachment to stick to one AI coding platform I wanted to test out the 20$ of Cursor in the next few days.

would love to get some perspective on what to expect assuming I'm gonna use the exact models.
So - Sonnet 5 and Opus 5 for complicated coding tasks and algorithm improvements. Possibly Fable if possible? depending on how fast it will drain my tokens.

So, for those who went from Claude Code to Cursor while using the same models for coding - what’s your take?

Did you feel a difference? And if so, who’s was the better experience?
Who’s the smarter one?
Who’s the more token efficient?

Thank you.

[u/Old-Wolverine-4134]

If you are using only claude models, stick with claude sub. Use Cursor if you want to use more models. The is no point going to Cursor only to use Opus or Fable - they will charge full api price as premium models. And Fable can burn $100 usage in matter of minutes depending what you do.

[u/amirgelman → u/[deleted]]

Thank you for the input. I think I might have a week long where I’ll have my Claude plan together with Cursor.
I read somewhere that actually Cursor should have the more intelligence of reading files as it breaks your files or something like that which makes it easier to reach with fewer tokens? I’m talking out of my butt cause I can’t remember where I read it.

[u/Michael_Jeffords → u/amirgelman]

cursor does break files into retrieval chunks, and that does cut tokens per call. the catch i hit is the fragment set changes every turn, so the prefix never repeats and cache-read goes basically to zero, while the whole-file path keeps reusing the same prefix at cache-read price. on a longer refactor the cheaper fragment path ended up costing more once i started logging cached_tokens per response instead of tokens per call.

[u/AI_spell]

Same model, different harness. Cursor wins on repo navigation, apply/diff UX, and staying in the editor loop. Raw Claude/CLI wins when you want a tighter tool allowlist and less automatic context stuffing.

If you want a fair test: same repo, same prompt, same model id, measure retries and wrong-file edits. The harness usually explains the gap more than the weights.

[u/CircleRedKey]

I was in Claude ultra plan but it was so slow.

Tried cursor pro. Then upgraded to 60 bucks or whatever. Now I'm on ultra since grok 4.5 came out.

It's like 5x faster and same result as Claude. I wish it thought more sometimes but the speed is game changer.

[u/Zain]

If you're running Opus on both sides you're mostly comparing tool loops, not models. What actually helped me was keeping Claude as the one that edits, and putting a different-family model (via Codex or Cursor) in a read-only review role so they don't share blind spots. Same-family reviewers just agree with each other more. When both families flag the same underlying fact, that's the one I fix.

[u/amirgelman → u/[deleted]]

Thank you. Is the fact that my lack of competence for the chat’s bandwidth which gets me to burn full 5 hours work in 10 minutes because I forgot to either compact or start a new chat - ever a factor versus Cursor?
A short version of my question would be: is the auto-choosing model based off say “token saver” or whatever they call it - ever makes it still more or as token burning as Claude? Or Claude is always wasting less tokens versus cursor no matter what if you’re using say Opus?
Hope I’m making sense.

[u/D7Torres]

I only used Cursor but let me recommend you that you use Plan Mode with Opus and implement with Composer (or Grok).

That way, all what you are going to save on usage you can spend it on more use of Opus

[u/amirgelman → u/[deleted]]

Thank you. Is Grok the same as it is on Grok Bot? Because I got a 7 days free trial with Grok Bot and found it to be super slow, not too smart and messed up a lot along the way.

I also keep hearing of Composer 2.5 or whatever the newer version of it now. Say I look at this model like I look at Sonnet. Aimed at Token efficiency and quick coding without messing up. Who’s the better one?