AI in your IDE (e.g. Cursor) vs AI in your terminal (Claude Code) — what’s the better flow?

For me, using both is the best way, Claude in Cursors Terminal brings me the code stability and I'm using it when deploys are failing or authentication , serious stuff. For new features im using cursors ai, mostly claude sonnet 4 max , Opus 4 is better but it costs far too much...

IDE-based is a fluent way to start AI. Engineers in my team moved to Cursor quickly and efficiently. Every part would be totally changed by AI. So is coding. OUT of IDE is a new and imaginative coding mode. I vote for terminal-based or some other new mode.

I haven't tested which "helps me move faster," but when using @Warp, it feels less cramped than when using e.g. @Cursor. Even if I have an IDE full screen on a 27'' display, it feels cramped having all those sections open. In contrast, using terminal-based AI, which I have at full screen on a 14'' laptop, doesn't feel cramped to me.

But I assume, based on previous uses of AI in the IDE, that would be faster. From what I remember of using those platforms, the agents never asked for permission to change something. That might've changed with newer updates; it's been a while since I tested a few. With @Warp, I have it set to always ask me for approval before anything happens. That fine-grained control does slow me down since I have to review commands or file changes before the agent can move on.

I do see that control as a gain rather than a frustration. Especially this past week, with the news of the Replit disaster.

In our experience building semantic workflows, the point is beyond whether IDE vs terminal; for us it’s context fluidity applied to a very specific problem which is converting prototypes to code then to full stack applications.

We've stepped outside the IDE vs terminal experience because neither fully accommodates the modeling demands of our semantic workflows. Both were quite inefficient and primeval and mainly because of how the underlying LLMs are structured for customers access - mainly on how Claude subscriptions are becoming more restrictive on utilization with now formalized weekly rate limits.

Terminal-based agents like Claude Code are still early stage in my view - they excel at one-shot precision and scripting at speed when paired with strong mental models - but at scale, we found the code generation lacks semantic structure. Breaks as state, design logic and interface scaffolding and overall it's just too costly working at scale.

IDE integrations like Cursor promise spatial fluidity, but are still bound to a code-first view that struggles with interface reasoning and layout scaffolding - it lacks agentic memory and struggles to reason across layout intent.

We've decided to work our models from the ground up from June last year and to operate on a different level entirely; they're architected specifically around semantic intent, modular coherence and multimodal reasoning as conventional wrappers still can't parse the layered context we work in.

I’ve tried both setups, and personally, Cursor worked better for my use case. We mainly used IDE-based tools while building our AI-powered fintech platform, VibeTrader. They just feel way more fluid when you’re juggling logic across multiple files.

I won't choose any specific one. IDEs like Cursor and Copilot are nice for having everything in one spot, with code suggestions right there where you’re working. If you’re building something too complex, it helps to stay in the flow.

Terminal setups like Claude Code can be faster for generating commands or scripts on the fly without the noise. It’s more direct.

And most importantly, it depends on what you’re building. I’d say use whatever keeps you productive, but mixing both could work well.

It's weird. Not a single person was using the terminal to write meaningful production code before Claude Code. No one I know is doing it now. It's not a seamless experience, and devs like IDEs for a reason. I'm convinced Anthropic is astroturfing Claude Code support hard. The experience is worse in every way. I love their models but this is a half baked UX

Claude is my choice, so far, my coding knowledge is minimal. Less than minimal. But with claude I’m about to launch an Alpha test that was built completely through Claude code. Claude help me confiture everything, at Git repository, Vercel server, website, Microsoft graph configuration, and even an supabase, everything Claude was at the middle of it. Now you do have to wrangle it in a times and force it to check its work. We had a few error loops that you have to be able to walk through to get arround. But once you get comfortable you can fly. Because of Claude i built what will hopefully decent and functional product in only about be 20-30 hours.

Personally, I like to use both. I mainly use Cursor for autocomplete and smaller AI prompts that require only one or two files of context. And then I like Claude Code for larger tasks or prototyping. I think both increase productivity, so I just use both.

I've got Codex and Claude Code both loaded in my Cursor. Kind of use it as a poor man's multi agent (only issue is that they work on the same branch). Main thing for me is that Cursor seems to be getting way worse and maintaining context, finding relevant code/patterns, etc, no matter which model I use (max mode only too). I usually opt for Codex first then Claude Code as a backup