Why Developers are Cancelling Cursor Subscriptions

Though developers have been using VSCode, GitHub Copilot, and other AI tools for coding for years, Cursor was the one that started the ‘vibe coding’ era. Hailed as a must-have AI coding assistant, it quickly outshone everyone else. Lately, however, the allure of the ‘tab tab tab’ software has been fading away. 

In what may come as a surprise, a growing number of developers are abandoning their subscriptions, frustrated by declining performance, hidden costs, and a shift away from Cursor’s original developer-first focus.

From Hero to Zero: What Went Wrong?

Developers who have been using Cursor since its early days are noticing a steep decline in its ‘usefulness’. In a viral Reddit discussion titled ‘Cursor’s path, from hero to zero,’ developers pointed out how Cursor used to be an irreplaceable tool earlier but is now “a mess of hidden charges and deteriorating performance”.

Some say that the introduction of Anthropic’s Claude Sonnet 3.7 marked the beginning of Cursor’s downfall. In some cases, Cursor uninstalled itself automatically, while on other occasions it would refuse to uninstall. 

Amusingly, it once asked a developer to learn coding instead of relying on AI to write the code.

Users have reported a noticeable loss of precision, an inability to understand related code, and an increased need for manual interventions. “I used to be able to trust Cursor to handle medium tasks seamlessly,” the OP of Reddit wrote. “Now I have to break them down into tiny fragments, doubling or tripling my workload.”

Meanwhile, Google’s Gemini 2.5 is gaining praise as the best AI coding model, a title only Anthropic’s Claude has convincingly claimed. It is available on Cursor, though all features are not yet released.

Developers were also previously transitioning from Cursor to Codeium’s Windsurf in large numbers as they discovered that the platform was not only similar to Cursor but also faster and more accurate. 

Rick Lamers, an AI researcher and engineer at Groq, said he waited too long to test out Windsurf and has now realised that it is “much more agentic than Cursor”. This sentiment is echoed in community discussions, where users highlight Windsurf’s superior context handling, especially when editing multiple files.

Also read: Developers are Finally Ditching Cursor for Windsurf

“After three months of using Cursor, I switched to Windsurf and found it more cost-effective with its unlimited Cascade base model performing very close to Claude 3.5 Sonnet,” another developer said on the Cursor forum. 

Developers Feel Betrayed

In what many see as a blatant business move, Cursor introduced the $20-per-month with Claude Sonnet 3.7 MAX plan, which requires users to pay additional fees per prompt. Developers argue that this is a deliberate downgrade of the free-tier model to push users toward MAX. 

“Funny how the free version suddenly got worse while MAX became the ‘solution’,” one user remarked.

But the last straw for many was the introduction of Google’s Gemini 2.5—the free model with a 1M-token context window. Google offers it for free, yet Cursor charges $0.04 per request. You have to pay for something that’s freely available through the API. This was the breaking point for many users.

Developers feel betrayed by this. Although Cursor, created by the startup Anysphere, has gained significant attention, it needs to raise money to continue its services, which has led to an increase in its price per token.

Another major pain point is the opacity in Cursor’s pricing. The $20 subscription comes with vague limitations, hidden API call costs, and an unpredictable billing model. Users have repeatedly asked for a clear pricing structure, but no changes have been made.

This sentiment is not widely accepted by many, as many are ready to pay the price for Cursor to boost their productivity. 

However, a common complaint among ex-subscribers is Cursor’s failure to understand its core audience. Initially designed for developers, Cursor now seems to cater to absolute beginners in a bid to make everyone a developer, which ironically is leading to skill erosion. 

Several users point to JetBrains or VSCode as an example of how to stay developer-centric while expanding market reach.

Alternatives are Getting Better

Cursor’s lack of communication is another sore spot for developers. Despite active developer engagement on forums and Reddit, feedback appears to be ignored. “Bug fixes happen, but real issues remain unaddressed,” a developer said.

But not everyone is unhappy with the vibe coder Cursor. Adarsh Shirawalmath, the founder of Tensoic, told AIM that he still uses Cursor as it is the best platform for auto-coding right now. 

“In fact, I see more people starting to use Cursor. My friends have been launching apps just by vibe coding. I feel tools like Cursor are to [here] stay and with features like Sonnet MAX, or just paired with the long context on Gemini 2.5 pro, people can do a lot,” he said. 

Shirawalmath agreed that Windsurf was also fast catching up, but “Cursor’s moat is indexing your entire codebase efficiently and then using powerful LLMs to work on those codebases. Microsoft is doing that with VS Code, but has lost its market to Cursor. Cursor marketing has to be studied in this case,” he laughed.

What do most developers still agree works well? Autocomplete. However, as one user stated: “It’s not worth $20 a month.”

As developers cancel their subscriptions, they are turning to alternatives like RooCode, Cline, and Windsurf. While these tools aren’t perfect, they are gaining traction by learning from Cursor’s mistakes. “I wanted to love Cursor, but they’ve lost my trust. I’m giving RooCode and Cline a shot. They can’t be worse than what Cursor has become,” a developer said.