If it sounds like Iām trying to sell you on this, Iām not. Thereās a lot of drawbacks. If you have not used projects, do not start with Cursor. Start with projects. This is the advanced class.
Most people donāt work and do their thinking in markdown files. This is not a normal thing. I work that way, but thatās not a normal thing.
Cursor doesnāt have any built-in speech to dictation the way that Claude mobile app or ChatGPT or Gemini or Microsoft do. You will need a third party app if you want to use it. And I do recommend having speech to text dictation.
Thereās no mobile app. Thereās no chatting, having a phone call with it while youāre driving. For a lot of people that really matters. I know for me, that does.
Itās way geekier. Itās harder to set up, has fewer affordances, and is harder to teach to people who arenāt fluent in Git. If you have an engineering background, itās not as true, but thereās so many geeky things about it.
When using Claude Code for regular non-technical work, the advantage is itās really about taking large autonomous tasks, going off and coming back. But for a thinking partner, thatās not necessarily what I want. When I brainstorm with a colleague, I want them next to me, I want that interaction.
ā”ļø Only use Cursor if you already work in markdown, donāt need mobile access, and want a thinking partner (not an autonomous agent). Otherwise, start with Claude or ChatGPT projects first.
AI coding agents for plain English
Don't use Cursor to start
Why you should begin with Claude or ChatGPT projects first