I Switched to Cursor for 3 Months: The Brutal Truth About AI-Assisted Development

Three months ago, I did something that felt slightly reckless: I switched from VS Code to Cursor. The promise was seductive—AI-powered coding that would make me exponentially faster. The reality? More complicated.

Here's what actually happened when I bet my productivity on an AI-powered IDE.

Why I Made the Switch

I wasn't chasing hype. I had a practical problem: a backlog of client work, tight deadlines on a React Native app, and a Next.js migration that was eating my time. GitHub Copilot helped, but it felt like autocomplete on steroids rather than a true coding partner.

Cursor promised something different: an AI that could understand entire codebases, write multi-file refactors, and actually understand context. For £16/month, it seemed worth trying.

The setup took about 20 minutes. Cursor is a fork of VS Code, so my extensions, keybindings, and settings migrated seamlessly. That part was shockingly painless.

What Actually Makes You Faster

Let's get specific about the 3x faster claim. It's not universally true, but in certain scenarios, it's underselling it.

Boilerplate and CRUD Operations

Building a new API endpoint with validation, error handling, database queries, and tests? This used to take 30-45 minutes. Now it's closer to 10.

// I literally typed this prompt in a comment:
// "Create a POST endpoint for creating a booking with Zod validation,
// Prisma insert, and proper error handling"
 
// Cursor generated this (with minor tweaks):
export async function POST(req: Request) {
  try {
    const body = await req.json();
    const validated = bookingSchema.parse(body);
 
    const booking = await prisma.booking.create({
      data: validated,
    });
 
    return NextResponse.json(booking);
  } catch (error) {
    if (error instanceof ZodError) {
      return NextResponse.json(
        { error: error.errors },
        { status: 400 }
      );
    }
    return NextResponse.json(
      { error: "Internal server error" },
      { status: 500 }
    );
  }
}

The first time this worked perfectly, I audibly said "holy shit." The AI understood my project's patterns, my validation library, my database schema. It wasn't just autocomplete—it was architectural consistency at machine speed.

Refactoring Across Multiple Files

I had a component prop called isActive used in 47 files. A client wanted it renamed to isEnabled for clarity. Normally: find-and-replace prayer, manual verification, inevitable bugs.

With Cursor's "Cmd+K" multi-file edit mode, I described the change in plain English. It proposed changes across all 47 files, showed me a diff, and applied them atomically. Zero bugs. Took 3 minutes instead of 45.

This is where Cursor earns its keep.

Understanding Legacy Code

I inherited a client project with minimal documentation and a React component that was 800 lines of uncommented spaghetti. Normally, understanding this would take hours of console.log archaeology.

Cursor's "Explain this code" feature broke it down in seconds: the business logic, side effects, why certain weird patterns existed. Not perfect, but it cut comprehension time by 70%.

What Drives You Absolutely Crazy

Here's the part other reviews skip. Cursor has infuriating quirks.

The AI Gets Confidently Wrong

About 15% of the time, Cursor generates code that looks perfect but has subtle bugs. The problem isn't the bugs—it's that the AI presents them with absolute confidence.

Last week it generated a database query that worked in development but had a race condition that crashed production. The code looked clean, passed my tests (which should've been better), and exploded under load.

You can't autopilot. You still need to read every line.

Token Limits Hit at the Worst Moments

Cursor uses Claude or GPT-4 under the hood, which have token limits. In the middle of a complex refactor, you'll hit the limit and the AI just... stops. Mid-sentence. Mid-thought.

It's like having a brilliant pair programmer who randomly falls asleep every 20 minutes.

The £16/month "Pro" plan has better limits, but I still hit them on large codebases. There's a "slow" mode with unlimited requests, but it's glacially slow—often 30+ second response times.

Command Palette Confusion

Cursor has its own commands (Cmd+K, Cmd+L, Cmd+I) layered on top of VS Code's. I constantly trigger the wrong one. Three months in, I still occasionally open Cursor's chat when I meant to find files.

It's a muscle memory tax that never fully goes away.

Codebase Indexing Eats RAM

Cursor indexes your entire codebase for context. On my largest monorepo (about 200k lines), it uses 3-4GB of RAM. If you're running Docker, Node dev servers, and Chrome with 47 tabs (guilty), your machine will choke.

I had to upgrade RAM on my MacBook Pro. That's an unbudgeted cost.

The £16/Month Question: Is It Worth It?

Let's do brutal math.

My average hourly rate (to clients) is about £80. If Cursor saves one hour per week—a conservative estimate based on my tracking—that's £320/month in billable time. Cost is £16/month.

ROI: 1,900%.

But that's not the full picture. The real value isn't time saved—it's cognitive load reduced.

The Hidden Benefit: Less Context Switching

The biggest win isn't speed. It's not having to leave your editor to look up documentation, Stack Overflow, or syntax you've forgotten.

Last week I needed to implement Stripe webhooks. Normally: open docs, read for 15 minutes, copy examples, adapt them, debug. With Cursor: "Generate a Stripe webhook handler for payment_intent.succeeded with signature verification."

Done in 90 seconds. The time saved was nice. The fact that I stayed in flow state? Priceless.

When It's Not Worth It

For pure algorithmic work, Cursor doesn't help much. Solving a complex caching problem or debugging a gnarly TypeScript generic still requires human brain cycles.

For less experienced developers, Cursor might be actively harmful. It's easy to lean on the AI instead of learning fundamentals—shipping features fast but struggling to debug when Cursor gets it wrong.

It's a powerful tool, but you need to know when not to use it.

My Verdict After 90 Days

I'm not switching back to VS Code.

Cursor has flaws—the token limits, the RAM usage, the occasional confident wrongness. But for a solo developer doing client work with tight deadlines, it's transformative.

The speed gains on boilerplate, refactoring, and understanding unfamiliar code are real. The reduction in context switching preserves mental energy for the hard problems AI can't solve.

Is it 3x faster? On the right tasks, yes. On average, probably 30-40% faster. But even that is enormous for a £16/month tool.

Should You Switch?

Yes, if:

You work on multiple projects with different tech stacks
You do a lot of CRUD, boilerplate, or refactoring
You value staying in flow state over raw speed
You have the discipline to review AI-generated code carefully

No, if:

You're early in your career and still learning fundamentals
You work on highly algorithmic or novel problems
Your machine is already RAM-constrained
You're ideologically opposed to AI assistance (valid position)

Try It Without Commitment

Cursor has a two-week free trial. My advice: don't test it on toy projects. Use it on real work. Specifically:

Refactor something across multiple files
Add a new feature to an unfamiliar codebase
Write tests for existing code
Debug something you don't understand

Those scenarios show where Cursor excels and where it falls flat.

Working on a complex web application and curious how AI tools could fit into your development workflow? I've now used Cursor across a dozen projects—from React Native apps to Next.js migrations—and learned which tasks to trust to AI and which require human judgment. Get in touch if you'd like to discuss how I approach AI-assisted development in client work.

This post reflects my honest experience as of November 2024. I'm not sponsored by Cursor (though if they're offering, I'll take it). For more on my development process and tooling, check out my other articles on modern web development.