I Got Tired of the Reddit Arguments, So I Tested Both AI Assistants Myself

Every Reddit thread debating GitHub Copilot vs Cursor devolves into tribal warfare. People defend whichever tool they've already committed to, and nobody actually tests anything. So I decided to do something about it.

For 30 days, I used both tools simultaneously on identical projects. Not switching between them week to week, but actually running them side by side, measuring everything I could quantify, and documenting the moments that made me want to throw my laptop across the room.

My day job involves writing security-critical code where autocomplete mistakes aren't just annoying. They're potentially dangerous. I needed to know which tool I could actually trust. This isn't a theoretical comparison. It's what happened when I put both assistants through real work.

Testing Setup: Same Projects, Same Complexity, Measurable Metrics

Methodology matters, so let me explain exactly how I structured this test.

Three parallel projects formed the basis: a React dashboard with authentication flows, a Python API with SQLAlchemy ORM interactions, and a TypeScript utility library. Each project had equivalent complexity and similar patterns.

For every coding session, I'd write the same feature twice. Once with Copilot, once with Cursor. What did I track?

• Autocomplete acceptance rate: How often did I hit Tab versus backspace through garbage?
• Time to completion: Stopwatch on each feature implementation
• Error rate: How many suggestions introduced bugs I caught in testing?
• Context accuracy: Did the tool understand what I was actually trying to do?

VS Code served as my editor for both since Cursor is essentially a VS Code fork, keeping the playing field level. Each tool had access to the same codebases, same file structures, same everything.

One important note: I'm comparing Copilot's standard tier ($10/month) against Cursor Pro ($20/month), not Copilot Enterprise, not Cursor's free tier. These are the versions most individual developers actually use.

Autocomplete Accuracy Battle: Numbers Don't Lie

Over 30 days, I logged 2,847 autocomplete suggestions from Copilot and 2,691 from Cursor. The results were revealing.

Copilot's acceptance rate: 67% Cursor's acceptance rate: 71%

That 4% difference sounds small until you calculate it across a full workday. At roughly 150 suggestions per day, Cursor gave me about 6 fewer garbage completions to deal with.

The accuracy gap widened dramatically based on context complexity, though.

For simple, predictable code like imports or basic function signatures, performance was nearly identical: around 85% acceptance for both tools. Real differences showed up in multi-line completions and code that required understanding project-specific patterns.

A concrete example from my React project:

I was writing a custom hook for handling form validation state. Copilot suggested a generic useState pattern that technically worked but ignored the validation library I'd been using throughout the codebase. What did Cursor suggest? It actually imported and used Zod, matching my existing patterns.

This happened repeatedly. Cursor seemed to have better awareness of project context, while Copilot often defaulted to more generic solutions.

One area where Copilot had an edge, though: raw JavaScript and TypeScript type inference. When I needed complex TypeScript generics, Copilot's suggestions were correct more often. My guess is GitHub's training data includes more typed JavaScript than whatever Cursor is using.

Multi-File Editing Showdown: Composer vs Copilot Edits

Cursor has a feature called Composer that lets you describe a change in natural language, and it'll modify multiple files simultaneously. GitHub has now released Copilot Edits, which enables coordinated multi-file editing too. Things change fast in this space, so keep in mind that direct comparisons may become outdated quickly.

I tested this with a realistic scenario: adding a new user role to my React dashboard. The change required touching:

• TypeScript type definitions
• Authentication context
• Two React components
• API route handlers
• Database migration files

With Copilot, I had to make each change manually, asking for suggestions file by file. Total time: 34 minutes.

With Cursor's Composer, I described what I wanted in plain English, reviewed the proposed changes across all files, and committed. Total time: 11 minutes.

Even accounting for review time, the savings were substantial. And the changes were accurate. I expected to spend time fixing Composer's mistakes, but I only had to adjust one type annotation.

Multi-file editing is a massive time saver if your work touches more than one file at a time. If you regularly make changes that span multiple components, both tools now offer features to help with this workflow.

Comparing Cursor Composer to Copilot Chat isn't really fair because they're solving different problems. Copilot Chat explains code and answers questions. Composer actually edits code. [Link: AI pair programming best practices]

Framework-Specific Results: React, Python, and TypeScript

React Results

Cursor won here. Not by a landslide, but consistently.

JSX syntax handling was solid from both tools. The differences showed in understanding React-specific patterns like hooks, context, and component composition. Cursor correctly inferred when I needed useCallback versus useMemo about 78% of the time. Copilot was right closer to 61%.

One frustration with Copilot: it would frequently suggest class components when my entire codebase used functional components. It's 2024. I haven't written a class component in three years. Why is this still happening?

Python Results

Here, performance was nearly identical. Both tools excelled at Python.

SQLAlchemy model definitions, FastAPI route handlers, Pydantic schemas: all produced quality suggestions from each tool. Copilot had a slight edge with Python type hints, continuing its pattern of stronger typing support.

Where Cursor pulled ahead was docstring generation. When I typed triple quotes, Cursor generated docstrings that actually matched my function signatures. Copilot's docstrings often had parameter mismatches.

TypeScript Results

This was Copilot's strongest showing. Some professional developers might disagree with me, but Copilot's TypeScript suggestions were noticeably better.

Complex generic types, conditional types, mapped types: Copilot nailed these more consistently. I suspect this reflects Microsoft's deep investment in TypeScript and the training data they have access to.

If you write primarily TypeScript with sophisticated type-level programming, Copilot might be the better choice despite Cursor's advantages elsewhere.

Pricing vs Value Analysis: What Your Money Actually Buys

GitHub Copilot Individual: $10/month

• Autocomplete in supported IDEs
• Copilot Chat for explanations and Q&A
• CLI integration

Cursor Pro: $20/month

• Autocomplete with arguably better context awareness
• Composer for multi-file editing
• Chat with codebase awareness
• Custom AI instructions per project

So is that extra $10/month worth it?

My math goes like this: if Cursor's multi-file editing saves me 20 minutes per day, and my time is worth at least $50/hour, that's roughly $16.50 in daily value. The tool pays for itself in a single day, with 29 days of profit.

But this calculation only works if you regularly make multi-file changes. If you mostly write isolated functions or work in single-file scripts, Copilot's value proposition is stronger.

The best AI coding assistant for VS Code depends entirely on your workflow. There's no universal answer.

Verdict: A Decision Framework Based on Your Coding Style

After 30 days of testing, I'm not going to give you a simple winner. That would be lazy. Instead, here's how to decide.

Choose Cursor if you:

• Work on large codebases with interconnected files
• Frequently refactor across multiple components
• Value contextual awareness over raw suggestion speed
• Write React or similar component-based frameworks
• Consider $20/month a trivial expense for productivity gains

Choose Copilot if you:

• Write primarily TypeScript with complex types
• Work in isolated files or small scripts
• Prefer a lighter-weight tool that stays out of your way
• Already pay for GitHub Enterprise with included Copilot
• Want the more mature, widely-adopted option

Consider using both if you:

• Have different projects with different needs
• Want Cursor for greenfield development and Copilot for maintenance
• Have the budget and want the best of both worlds

My personal choice? I'm sticking with Cursor for my primary work. Composer changed how I approach multi-file edits, which used to be my biggest time sink.

But I'm keeping my Copilot subscription for TypeScript library work where the type inference is genuinely superior. These tools are good enough now that picking one for each job type actually works.

A year ago, we didn't have tools this capable. Now we're arguing about which excellent option beats the other by a few percentage points. Kind of wild when you think about it.

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Your next step: Try whichever tool you're not currently using on a small project. Give it at least a week before judging. Both have learning curves, and first impressions can be misleading.

And if you run your own comparison, I'd love to hear your results. My data is just one developer's experience. More real-world testing means better decisions for everyone.