My Junior Devs Were Shipping Faster Than Me. So I Finally Tried Cursor.

I'll be honest with you. When my teammates started raving about Cursor AI last year, I rolled my eyes. Hard.

Look, I've been writing code professionally for 15 years. Before that, seven years in investment banking taught me to watch hyped-up tools come and go. Enough to fill a graveyard, really. Remember when every dev swore by Atom? Yeah.

So when I finally caved and installed Cursor in December, four days was all I lasted before uninstalling it. The AI suggestions felt intrusive. Muscle memory? Completely disrupted. And my carefully curated VS Code setup was gone. Slower, not faster.

But something nagged at me. Junior developers on my team were shipping features faster than me. That stung.

Six months later, I'm writing the Cursor AI review that experienced programmers on Reddit actually need. Not the breathless hype pieces or the dismissive hot takes. What does switching from VS Code to Cursor AI actually look like when you've got years of muscle memory, a finely tuned workflow, and healthy skepticism of anything promising to "revolutionize" your productivity?

Spoiler: it's complicated.

My VS Code Setup Was Already Optimized. Here's What Made Me Switch Anyway

Before we go further, let me establish my baseline. VS Code wasn't some default installation for me.

I had:

• 47 extensions (yes, I counted)
• Custom keybindings refined over 5 years
• A snippets library with 200+ templates
• Workspace-specific settings for different project types
• A whole system of tasks and launch configurations

Not a casual setup. A productivity machine built over hundreds of hours.

So why switch? Two reasons.

First, I watched a junior dev on my team use Cursor to refactor a complex data pipeline in 20 minutes. That same task took me 2 hours the previous month. Not a typo.

Second, and this matters more than most Cursor AI reviews mention, I was curious whether AI assistance could help bridge the gap between my business background and increasingly complex technical work. Leading a data platform team means constant context-switching between strategy and implementation. Anything that reduces cognitive load is worth investigating.

The Good: Where Cursor Actually Saves Me Hours (With Real Examples)

Specific examples matter here, because vague claims about "productivity gains" are useless.

Boilerplate elimination is real. Last week, I needed to create 15 API endpoints for a new microservice. Even with snippets in VS Code, we're talking 2–3 hours of tedious typing. With Cursor, I described the pattern for the first endpoint, and the AI correctly predicted the next 14. Forty-five minutes total.

Code review prep got faster. Highlighting a function and asking Cursor to explain potential edge cases catches things I miss when I'm tired. Just yesterday, it flagged a race condition I'd glossed over.

Documentation that actually happens. I've always been terrible about writing docs. Now I generate first drafts with AI and edit them. Documentation coverage on my team has improved noticeably.

The "rubber duck" effect on steroids. When I'm stuck, explaining the problem to Cursor often helps me solve it myself. But unlike a rubber duck, it sometimes offers useful suggestions.

Here's my honest Cursor AI productivity assessment based on real-world experience: roughly 5–8 hours per week saved on repetitive tasks. That's not nothing.

The Bad: Limitations That Reddit Threads Downplay or Miss Entirely

Now for the part most Cursor AI reviews conveniently skip.

Wrong solutions, delivered confidently. Happens multiple times daily. Last month, a deprecated library function recommendation would've broken production. Senior developers will catch these. Juniors? Dangerous.

Context window limitations are a real problem. Cursor can only "see" so much code at once. Complex codebases mean it often misses dependencies or suggests solutions conflicting with patterns established elsewhere. Hours spent debugging issues the AI introduced because it didn't understand the broader architecture. Hours I'll never get back.

Subscription costs add up across a team. At $20/month per developer, a team of 10 spends $2,400/year. Not trivial when you're justifying budgets.

Your workflow gets disrupted. Period. No matter how customizable Cursor is, you're learning a new tool. During my first month, I was probably 30% slower. Productivity gains didn't appear until month three.

Privacy concerns are real. Your code gets sent to external servers. For some organizations and projects, that's a non-starter. Certain client work is off-limits for me due to contractual restrictions.

When people ask what the real limitations of Cursor AI are, these are the answers that matter.

Monorepo Reality Check: Performance Benchmarks on Our 2M+ Line Codebase

Here's something most reviews can't offer: Cursor AI performance data on large monorepos from an actual enterprise environment.

Our main repository has over 2 million lines of code across 15,000+ files. TypeScript, Python, and some legacy Java. It's a beast.

Indexing time: Initial indexing took 47 minutes. VS Code's built-in search works immediately.

Memory usage: Cursor consistently uses 2–3 GB more RAM than VS Code on the same workspace. On a 16 GB MacBook Pro, this matters.

AI response latency: Smaller projects feel instant. Our monorepo? Noticeable 2–4 second delay for complex suggestions. Sometimes longer.

Search accuracy: Cursor's AI-powered search occasionally surfaces more relevant results than traditional text search. But sometimes it hallucinates file paths that don't exist. Maddening.

Bottom line: if you're working on large codebases, budget for better hardware and patience.

Cursor vs. VS Code for Professionals: A Feature-by-Feature Breakdown

How does Cursor AI compare to VS Code for professionals across categories that actually matter?

Extension ecosystem: VS Code wins. Not even close. Many extensions work in Cursor (it's a fork), but compatibility issues exist. Two of my must-have extensions don't work properly.

AI code completion: Cursor wins decisively. GitHub Copilot in VS Code is good. Cursor's implementation is better, especially for multi-line suggestions and understanding context.

Git integration: Tie. Both work fine. Cursor hasn't improved on VS Code's already-solid Git features.

Customization: VS Code wins. More mature, more options, more community support.

Debugging: VS Code wins. Same capabilities in theory, but I've encountered more bugs with Cursor's debugger.

Raw performance (no AI features): VS Code wins. Lighter and faster when you're not using AI features.

AI chat interface: Cursor wins. Having an integrated, context-aware chat proves useful. VS Code's Copilot chat exists but feels bolted on.

For professional developers comparing Cursor AI vs. VS Code, neither tool is universally better. It depends on how much you value AI assistance versus stability and ecosystem maturity.

Is Cursor Worth $20/Month? My ROI Calculation After 6 Months

Time for math. Is Cursor AI worth it for senior developers?

Hourly rate (rough estimate): $85/hour when you factor in total compensation.

Time saved per week: 5–8 hours (let's say 6 on average).

Monthly time saved: 24 hours.

Monthly value of time saved: $2,040.

Cursor Pro cost: $20/month.

ROI: Over 100x return.

Even if I'm overestimating time savings by 50%, the math still works.

However, here's what this calculation misses: time lost during the learning curve (probably 40–50 hours over three months), the frustration cost, and errors I had to fix when AI suggestions were wrong.

After six months of honest assessment, the investment paid off. But it took longer than expected, and there were moments I nearly gave up.

Final Verdict: Should Senior Developers Make the Switch?

Six months in, here's my take on why experienced developers are switching to Cursor AI, and whether you should too.

Switch to Cursor if:

• You write lots of boilerplate code
• You're comfortable catching AI mistakes
• You have hardware to spare (16 GB RAM minimum, 32 GB recommended for large projects)
• Your organization allows cloud-based code processing
• You're patient enough to push through the learning curve

Stay on VS Code if:

• You work with sensitive or restricted code
• Your extensions are mission-critical and Cursor doesn't support them
• You're on older hardware
• You're already at peak productivity and don't write much repetitive code
• You actually enjoy your current workflow

What does this honest Cursor AI review from a senior developer come down to? Cursor made me faster. Eventually. But it's not magic, and it's not for everyone.

Sometimes I still miss my old VS Code setup. Muscle memory occasionally betrays me. And I cringe every time the AI confidently suggests something that would've broken production.

But I'm not going back. Productivity gains are real once you push through the initial pain.

Want my advice? Try the free tier for a month. Actually commit to learning it. Then decide. Don't let Reddit hype or Reddit skepticism make the decision for you.

You're a professional. Evaluate tools on your own terms.

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What's your experience with Cursor? I'd love to hear from other senior devs who've made the switch, whether you loved it or hated it.