Claude Code vs Cursor compared on pricing, permission settings and rule files

Claude Code and Cursor are both coding agents. Cursor is known as an editor, but it now ships a CLI too, so using it from a terminal looks much like using Claude Code.

What changed in 2026 is what your subscription includes. Cursor is sold as part of the X Subscription, and what comes with it is Grok and Composer. Using Claude's models costs extra. That is the single biggest factor in choosing between them.

At a glance

Verified against the official documentation as of 2026-10-28.

	Claude Code	Cursor
Surfaces	CLI, VS Code extension, desktop app	Editor, CLI, cloud agents
Models included	Claude models	Cursor models (Grok 4.7 / 4.6 / 4.5, Composer 2.5)
Third-party models	N/A	Not included; Premium and above pay API list price from prepaid credit
Usage unit	Rolling five-hour session window	A pool that refreshes weekly
Permission syntax	Bash(...), Read(...), Edit(...)	Shell(...), Read(...), Write(...), WebFetch(...), Mcp(...)
Config file	settings.json, five scopes	cli-config.json (global) and cli.json (project)
Rule file	CLAUDE.md	Four kinds, including .mdc files in .cursor/rules and AGENTS.md

The subscriptions include different models

The documentation opens with it: "Cursor is sold as part of The X Subscription, one subscription for Grok, Cursor, and X." Paid plans come with a weekly pool of usage for Cursor's models, and third-party models are not included.

Cursor plan	Monthly	Annual
Free	$0	—
Plus	$8	$80
Premium	$30	$300
Super	$100	$1,000
Ultra	$200	$2,000

Teams is $30, $100 or $200 per seat, and Enterprise is custom. Prices exclude tax.

Plus is the tier to read carefully. The documentation says it runs Cursor's own models at fixed settings: Fast off, effort medium, and Grok 4.7 on the 256k context window. No Auto, Cloud Agents, Automations, Bugbot, Origin, third-party models, or your own API keys.

On the Claude side, Free is $0, Pro is $20 billed monthly or $17/mo billed annually ($200 up front), and Max starts at $100 for 5x or 20x Pro's usage. Claude Code is included in Pro and Max, and is not available on Free. Limits "reset on a rolling five-hour session window".

The documentation also calls Pro, Pro+, Ultra, Start, and Teams Standard and Premium "legacy Cursor plans". Note that Ultra appears in both the current and the legacy lists, so the names overlap.

The permission syntax is similar

Cursor CLI's permission tokens look a lot like Claude Code's. You list them under permissions.allow and permissions.deny.

{
  "permissions": {
    "allow": [
      "Shell(git)",
      "Read(src/**/*.ts)",
      "Write(package.json)",
      "WebFetch(docs.github.com)",
      "Mcp(datadog:*)"
    ],
    "deny": [
      "Shell(rm)",
      "Read(.env*)",
      "Write(**/*.key)"
    ]
  }
}

Shell is Shell rather than Bash, and edits are Write rather than Edit. For MCP, Claude Code writes mcp__<server>__<tool> while Cursor writes Mcp(server:tool). Keeping .env out of reach works the same way in both. For the Claude Code syntax, see Claude Code permissions in settings.json.

The real difference is where settings can live. Cursor CLI reads ~/.cursor/cli-config.json globally and <project>/.cursor/cli.json per project, but the documentation states: "Only permissions can be configured at the project level. All other CLI settings must be set globally."

So in Cursor, permissions are the only thing a project can vary. That is a different design from Claude Code, where five scopes from managed settings down to user settings can override nearly any key.

Rule file conventions

Cursor has four kinds of rules.

Kind	Where it lives
Project Rules	.mdc files in .cursor/rules, version-controlled
User Rules	Global to your Cursor environment
Team Rules	Managed from the dashboard, on Team and Enterprise plans
AGENTS.md	Markdown instructions, a simpler alternative to .cursor/rules

The extension is the trap in Project Rules. The documentation says "A plain .md file in .cursor/rules is ignored by the rules system because it has no frontmatter to specify description, globs, and alwaysApply." Use .mdc, or use AGENTS.md instead.

Claude Code uses CLAUDE.md. Because Cursor reads AGENTS.md, the tidiest arrangement for using both is to keep the shared content in AGENTS.md and reference it from CLAUDE.md. Codex reads AGENTS.md too, which makes this pay off across all three.

Choosing between them

Situation	The better fit
You mainly want Claude's models	Claude Code
You want completions while writing in the editor	Cursor
You want settings to vary per project	Claude Code, where more than permissions is per-project
You are happy on Grok and Composer and want a cheap start	Cursor Plus
You are wiring it into CI	Either; both have a CLI, so follow your existing subscription

Model quality is left out deliberately, since it changes with each release. For the same comparison against other tools, see Codex vs Claude Code and Gemini CLI vs Claude Code.

Summary

• Cursor is sold inside the X Subscription and includes Grok 4.7 / 4.6 / 4.5 and Composer 2.5
• Third-party models are not included; Premium and above pay API list price from prepaid credit, and Plus cannot use them
• Claude Code comes with Pro ($20/mo) and Max (from $100), and is not on Free
• The permission syntax is close, but Cursor can only vary permissions per project
• A plain .md in .cursor/rules is ignored; use .mdc or AGENTS.md