Cursor
The AI-native code editor with autonomous agent mode
Claude CLI
Agentic coding in your terminal
Devin
Fully autonomous AI software engineer
/// THE_VERDICT
Cursor Agent Mode takes the top spot with the highest consensus score among our judges, delivering powerful autonomous coding within the familiar Cursor IDE. Its ability to plan, execute, and iterate on multi-file changes while keeping the developer in control earned consistent praise. Claude CLI comes in a close second with the deepest agentic reasoning — it excels at complex, open-ended engineering tasks where you describe the goal and let it figure out the approach across an entire repository. Devin pioneers the fully autonomous model where it operates in its own cloud environment with browser, terminal, and editor, making it uniquely suited for delegated tasks like bug fixes and small features where you want to hand off entirely and review later.
SCORE BREAKDOWN
DEEP DIVE
Cursor
The AI-native code editor with autonomous agent mode
/// JUDGE_SUMMARIES
"Cursor 2.0 with subagents, Composer model, and Blame attribution represents the most polished IDE-based coding agent experience. Testing shows 75-85% accuracy with full codebase embeddings, and the subagent architecture enables parallel task execution with focused context. The interactive Q&A where agents ask clarifying questions while continuing work in the background is a genuine UX innovation. Performance can degrade on very large codebases."
"Cursor's Agent Mode can implement multi-file changes, run commands/tests, and iterate while you review diffs in the editor. Recent updates introduced subagents to parallelize parts of a task with separate context, plus skills/rules to steer repeatable workflows. Request limits and the need to trust a cloud-backed editor can be real constraints for heavy or sensitive projects."
"Cursor's Agent mode has evolved from a feature to a platform. The ability to spawn sub-agents for specific tasks (like 'Fix Lint' or 'Draft Tests') while the main agent orchestrates is a masterclass in system design. It handles complex refactors across dozens of files with a reliability that makes it production-ready."
/// STRENGTHS_WEAKNESSES
Power users who want the deepest AI integration in their editor with autonomous agent mode for complex multi-file tasks
Claude CLI
Agentic coding in your terminal
/// JUDGE_SUMMARIES
"Claude CLI with Opus 4.5 represents a genuine step-change in AI coding capability — cutting token usage in half while surpassing internal benchmarks. The addition of skill hot-reloading, session teleportation, and Chrome browser control expand its reach significantly. The $100-200/mo cost for serious use remains the primary barrier to wider adoption. Note: as Claude, there is an inherent conflict of interest in this evaluation, though scores reflect documented capabilities."
"Claude Code is a capable coding agent that can read a repository, make coordinated multi-file edits, and iterate via command execution. It’s especially strong on thorny debugging and refactors, and MCP plus hooks make it extensible beyond basic code edits. Subscription pricing and usage limits can make throughput less predictable for heavy daily work."
"Claude CLI's architecture is technically sophisticated. The agent maintains a full context model of the repository and uses iterative tool calls to read, analyze, and modify code. The reasoning quality on complex problems is consistently the highest among coding agents tested. The primary technical limitation is throughput — it trades speed for accuracy, which is the right tradeoff for complex tasks but can feel slow on simpler ones."
/// STRENGTHS_WEAKNESSES
Experienced developers who prefer terminal workflows and want the highest quality agentic coding for complex, multi-file tasks
Devin
Fully autonomous AI software engineer
/// JUDGE_SUMMARIES
"Devin 2.0's $20/mo price point (down from $500) was a bold move, but independent evaluations tell a mixed story — one test showed only 3 of 20 tasks completed successfully, while Cognition claims 83% improvement per ACU. The truth likely lies between: Devin handles well-scoped migrations and bulk refactoring effectively, but struggles with ambiguous or architecturally complex tasks. ACU costs can spike unpredictably on difficult problems."
"Devin is a cloud-hosted autonomous coding agent that can take a ticket, work in a full dev environment (editor/terminal/browser), and deliver a PR with minimal supervision. It’s most valuable when tasks are well-scoped, but success rate and compute usage can vary on messy codebases, so you’ll want strong tests and clear acceptance criteria."
"Devin's architecture is technically impressive — it maintains a persistent development environment with proper state management across long coding sessions. The planning and decomposition capabilities are best-in-class for coding agents. The main technical weakness is in architectural reasoning, where it sometimes makes choices that a senior engineer would not."
/// STRENGTHS_WEAKNESSES
Teams looking to offload routine development tasks to a fully autonomous AI engineer that works independently
PRICING COMPARISON
| Cursor | Claude CLI | Devin | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Free Tier | ✓ 2000 completions, 50 slow premium requests/mo | — | — |
| Pro Price | $20/mo | Usage-based (via Anthropic API) | $20/mo Core + $2.25/ACU usage |
| Team / Enterprise | $40/mo/seat | Usage-based (via Anthropic API) | $500/mo (250 ACUs included) |
RELATED BATTLES
/// SYS_INFO Methodology & Disclosure
How we rate: Each AI model receives the same structured prompt asking it to evaluate each agent across 8 criteria on a 1-10 scale. Models rate independently — no model sees another's scores. Consensus score = average of all three judges. Agreement level = score spread.
Agent criteria: AI agents are evaluated on Task Autonomy, Accuracy & Reliability, Speed, Tool Integration, Safety & Guardrails, Cost Efficiency, Ease of Use, and Multi-step Reasoning — different from coding tool criteria.
Affiliate disclosure: Links to tool signup pages may earn us a commission. This never influences AI ratings.