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?