Cursor hits $9B valuation

https://archive.ph/yQlLu

WARNING for Cursor users: Cursor is currently stuck using an outdated snapshot of the VSCode Marketplace, meaning several extensions within Cursor remain affected by high-severity CVEs that have already been patched upstream in VSCode. As a result, Cursor users unknowingly remain vulnerable to known security issues. This issue has been acknowledged but remains unresolved: https://github.com/getcursor/cursor/issues/1602#issuecomment...

Given Cursor's rising popularity, users should be aware of this gap in security updates. Until the Cursor team resolves the marketplace sync issue, caution is advised when using certain extensions.

I've flagged it here, apologies for the repost: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=43609572

Good for them. IMO they should ditch the editor though. I see no reason that they should tie themselves to one editor. It seems like a waste of time. If Claude code let me use me subscription I'd be off cursor pretty quick.

I just ended my Cursor subscription today, and upgraded from Claude's Pro to Max plan to reduce my Claude Code costs. They now include a healthy Claude Code allowance in the Max plans.

If one has already set up Claude Code with metered API use, one toggles between plans using the /login command. Once to start using Max, then whenever one hits a five hour rate limit and wants to keep working.

I've tried many platforms. I kept Cursor long after Windsurf, but Claude Code is a clear winner, as most people report who don't bristle at the cost.

When Cursor or Windsurf forks VS Code, they have a reason. Their chat panes always felt like periscopes; one has better control over Claude Code in a terminal, and this frees up one's choice of editor. I now use Sublime Text, fast and lean.

Any IDE based editor feels like a stopgap to me. We may not be there yet, but I feel that in the future a "vibe coder" isn't even going to look at much code at all. Much of what developers who are relying on Cursor, Windmill, Replit, etc etc are doing is performative as it relates to code. There is just a lot of copy/pasting of console errors and asking for things one way or another.

Casual or "vibe" coding is all about the output. Doesn't work? Roll back. Works well? Keep going. Feeling gutsy? Single shot.

I'm not sure that Andrej envisioned this when he tweeted out his Vibe Coding take what seems like forever ago now.

I applaud anybody who jumps into Cursor (or other AI Assisted Coding Tools) to build a new product. I think that a way to express ideas is awesome, and allowing for these ideas to materialize is valuable for society and users will determine what is valuable/usable.

However, it's well documented that the expression of these tools is limited. I think that the bet here is that LLMs will continue to get better and better, paving the way for these tools to become more valuable: which I haven't been convinced with yet.

At it's core you can list out the primary functionality of an AI Assisted Coding platform and how these components interact. Their prompts have been dumped, and the tools have been replicated, plus the big LLM providers are in this space as well and understand more nuances around the models and how they interact with the different components.

$9B seems bonkers, but time will tell. There are a few outcomes here: pop, life changes incredibly, or this is the stagnation period that seems to happen with AI/ML. LLMs have changed the way I work already, the question is "what is next". I am hoping that I am ahead of others on the Hype cycle, but only time will tell (from heavy use of AI tools).

Are different coding agents better at different languages? Like if I’m trying to write in python vs Golang vs PHP vs C#, am I going to want a different agent for each? Or is one agent going to be more or less consistent among all languages?

No need to change your IDE to AI/vibe code.

There are already a few good VS Code extensions like Cline and Kilo Code which do 80/20 of the job.

Cursor may be $9B but Aider is priceless

Didn’t they reject $20B from OpenAI? This seems like a 50% haircut.

I use both and I'm amazed at how poor the VSCode proposal is compared to Cursor.

This is crack smoking. This company is going to get wiped out by GitHub Copilot in short order.