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A practical comparison of Cursor and Claude Code, two AI coding tools built on fundamentally different philosophies. Cursor is an IDE-first tool optimized for interactive editing with tab completions and inline diffs, while Claude Code is an agent-first tool designed for autonomous multi-file task execution via natural language descriptions. The piece evaluates both across four dimensions—autonomy level, feedback loop speed, codebase complexity, and cost predictability—and includes a head-to-head breakdown of strengths, weaknesses, and pricing. A hybrid workflow using both tools ($40/month combined) is presented as increasingly common. The METR study (July 2025) is cited as a cautionary note: experienced developers using Cursor were 19% slower despite expecting 24% gains, highlighting that tool choice and workflow discipline matter more than feature lists.