[Digital Today reporter Chi-gyu Hwang] Whether AI coding startup Cursor can remain competitive against Anthropic’s Claude Code, which is sustaining rapid growth, has emerged as a point of interest in tech circles.

Cursor was founded in early 2022 by MIT student Michael Truell (마이클 트루엘) and colleagues. That was several months before the release of ChatGPT. It started as an AI coding tool that helps developers write code and led the AI coding boom.

Sixty-seven percent of Fortune 500 companies use Cursor. Each day, 150 million lines of enterprise code are generated with Cursor. Fortune recently reported that Cursor’s annual recurring revenue topped $2 billion in February. Its valuation rose from $2.5 billion in early 2025 to nearly $30 billion by year-end. Cursor is reportedly seeking new funding at a $50 billion valuation.

On social media, however, people say, "Cursor is dead." Fortune reported that one investor in Cursor said several startups in the firm’s portfolio are reducing their reliance on Cursor.

Key talent, including the head of engineering, has also recently left the company. A factor threatening Cursor is the rise of Claude Code, an AI coding tool offered by Anthropic. Claude Code, which Anthropic launched in February 2025, works in a fundamentally different way from Cursor. Cursor helps developers write code faster, while Claude Code autonomously writes code directly based on developer instructions.

If Cursor is like a developer putting on an Iron Man suit, Claude Code is like the AI assistant Jarvis putting on the suit and moving in its place.

Anthropic’s Claude Code has now secured $2.5 billion in annual recurring revenue and more than 300,000 corporate customers.

Boris Cherny (보리스 체르니), head of Anthropic’s Claude Code, said, "We created the very concept of agentic coding." Warp CEO Zack Lloyd (잭 로이드), of the coding AI company Warp, said, "I don’t believe the claim that 'Cursor is dead,' but the claim that 'IDEs are dead' is true," adding, "We no longer develop software that way."

For Cursor, pricing is also a disadvantage. Anthropic uses its own models at wholesale cost, while Cursor pays retail prices. A venture capital official said, "Anthropic is trying to starve Cursor out."

Cursor has been developing its own model, Composer, since 2025 to break through this situation. Composer posted results in benchmarks that outperformed Anthropic Opus 4.6. But developing and maintaining an in-house model requires substantial costs and technical personnel. CEO Truell said, "We will continue to destroy and innovate ourselves," adding, "I want to build an independent and long-lasting company." Cursor president Oskar Schulz (오스카르 슐츠) stressed that "95 percent of Cursor users are currently using agent features."

Among developers, it is common to use Cursor together with Claude Code and OpenAI Codex. Cherny said, "It’s not a winner-take-all market, but a market where multiple winners coexist."