Cursor vs Roo Code — Which AI Agent Is Better?
An in-depth comparison of Cursor and Roo Code across output quality, autonomy, reliability, speed, value, and ease of use. Vote for your favorite.
An in-depth comparison of Cursor and Roo Code across output quality, autonomy, reliability, speed, value, and ease of use. Vote for your favorite.
Pick a winner in each category — you can change your vote anytime.
CursorRoo CodeChoose Cursor if you are developers who want the most polished AI-integrated editor experience. Choose Roo Code if you are power users who want a deeply configurable VS Code agent and don't mind tuning it.
In our editorial scoring, Cursor leads in 4 of six categories (output quality, reliability, speed and ease of use), while Roo Code leads in 1 (value). On price, Cursor runs free tier / $20–200/mo and is proprietary; Roo Code runs free (byo api key) and is open source.
Give your chosen agent more room to build, test and iterate. Standard Compute stretches your compute through automatic provider selection and smart routing. Plans start at $19/month with $20 in monthly compute. Choose your agent below to connect. Eligible new accounts can try $0.25 of compute with no card.
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Weighing the cost of running it? Compare API plans for Roo Code
Cursor is a fork of VS Code redesigned from the ground up for AI-powered development. It features tab completions, natural language code editing, codebase-wide chat, and multi-file editing. Its deep editor integration makes it one of the most polished AI coding tools available.
Roo Code began as a fork of Cline and grew into its own power-user favourite. Its signature feature is modes: switchable personas like Architect (plan), Code (build), and Debug (fix), plus fully custom modes with their own prompts and tool permissions. It supports auto-approval settings for hands-off runs, MCP servers, and any OpenAI-compatible provider. The trade-off for all that configurability is a steeper setup than Cline — and, like every BYO-key agent, your API bill scales with how hard you run it.
Cursor and Roo Code both run on Standard Compute
