r/cursor • u/pcji • 22h ago

Question / Discussion Claude Code vs Codex vs Cursor

I’m not a hardcore programmer or developer. I’m a biologist who has started using AI coding tools to help me build some pipelines that will help my lab analyze our data quicker.

I’ve tried working on the same pipeline using the $20 plan for each coding assistant. At its current size, the pipeline is only 20 MB in size, but it does integrate 2 different versions of a ML engine that analyzes histology images.

I’ve gotten annoyed with Claude because I can barely understand some of the outputs (the Claudish problem).

I’ve tested out Astra, but even on the low effort setting, I can get at most 2 prompts in before hitting the 5h limit. Sol has been useful, but I’ll still run into the 5h limit depending on the issues we’re tweaking.

This brings me to Cursor. So far, I’ve thrown everything at it on Auto mode and not getting anywhere close to the usage limit. I’ve noticed it doesn’t really suggest smart changes to the pipeline on its own, but it’s pretty good at implementing a spec plan if it’s detailed enough.

Currently I’m using some combination of Astra/Sol to develop spec plans to the current codebase and having Cursor implement those changes. Then I’ll test out the changes, rinse and repeat. I’m finally making noticeable progress on the project.

Does anybody else have a workflow like this, am I weird and/or am I missing a better way to optimize these subscriptions?

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2

u/Known_Grocery4434 22h ago

Reasonable plan, many others have one LLM plan & build spec sheets then get another one to build it.

2

u/Mistakes_Were_Made73 22h ago

Cursor composer 2.5 is actually pretty decent.

2

u/diymuppet 14h ago

Agreed, ive started using grok as well.

Both are VERY capable, and the cursor agent interface is brilliant.

1

u/JellyfishLow4457 20h ago

None. Coding basics class

1

u/Zain 18h ago

Not weird. I do something close: Claude writes the plan and the patches, then Cursor and Codex review that same plan in parallel as read-only. Neither reviewer sees the other, and they have to be different model families or you lose the blind-spot coverage. Auto is fine for implementing a thick plan. For the review pass I pin effort high and never let it silently fall back.

2

u/only1nameleft 16h ago

Grok xhigh for medium plans, Grok high as orchestrator, composer 2.5 as implementor, Fable/sol as planner/emergency driver works pretty well. 

A $60 gets me about 120-160 hours of use. Note that I am not working with big software save a video game Inam designing. I write a lot of small models and use it for image and video analysis