Claude Code vs Cursor
What 11 creators said when they picked between the two, from podcasts and YouTube. Updated Oct 18, 2026.
Short answer
More creators prefer Claude Code: 4 to 1. 6 use both. Claude Code wins on coding.
Which is better for…
Only counts creators who compared the two for that job.
What creators use each for
| Job | Claude Code | Cursor |
|---|---|---|
| Coding | 106 | 62 |
| Agents and automation | 46 | 12 |
| Business ops | 11 | 2 |
| Design and UI | 6 | 5 |
| Research | 8 | 0 |
| Writing | 4 | 2 |
| Data and spreadsheets | 4 | 0 |
| Video | 4 | 0 |
Creators who said they use or recommend each one for that job.
What creators say
Picks Claude Code · 4
"Cursor and Claude Code — those are the two most popular. I would say Claude Code is number one, then Cursor, then Codex. We want you to use as many tokens as possible in whatever harness way is the best for you."
"It's literally downloading the spreadsheet as a CSV, uploading it to Cursor, and saying 'build it.' And then identifying all the ways that Cursor got it wrong and saying, 'We need to fix this. This is the right calculation here.' This to..."
JM Jack Moshkovich"The best place to try out this new model, GLM 5.2, in my opinion, is directly inside Cursor. I'll show you exactly how to set that up in just a second. I couldn't be more excited for Cursor to get better."
"Cursor is sort of present actually in a lot of these businesses. I don't think that anyone really perceives Cursor to be their primary enterprise software development strategy as much as an IDE, which is I think still a great business be..."
ER Eno ReyesUses both · 6
"I use Cursor's Composer 2.5 actually a lot. It's a very good model for the speed — quality is very good, very precise. I find Cursor's a really good harness. It's not too lazy. It'll often spin up sub-agents to get jobs done. I have Curs..."
SH Stephen Haney"To me I use both. I'm in Claude Code, but I also use Cursor personally."
"I use Cursor as my IDE. I use Claude Code Max to code pretty much the entire thing."
BC Benjamin Chen"I still use it. I actually made a chart yesterday in my YouTube video, but basically I use OpenClaw for quick prototypes... I use Claude code for deep serious projects where like I want to handhold it."
Picks Cursor · 1
"Just to plug Cursor a little bit — not only is the design and experience of Cursor awesome, the best feature for a lot of people is you can just switch between models extremely easily. So instead of getting hooked on Codex or Claude Code..."
LR Lenny RachitskyWho's switching
Jack Moshkovich
Related
How this works: we read every podcast and YouTube transcript we track, find each time a creator compared these tools, and note which one they picked. A creator who picked differently at different times, or said they use both, counts as "use both". Sponsored mentions are left out. More about Followed.