Cursor vs OpenAI Codex
| Cursor | OpenAI Codex | |
|---|---|---|
| What it is | AI coding agent and editor where you hand off coding tasks to agents. | OpenAI's coding agent; the open-source Codex CLI is a lightweight agent that runs in your terminal. |
| Use case | AI coding agents | AI coding agents |
| Pricing tier | Freemium | Freemium |
| Pricing note | Pricing page lists a Free plan with limited agent requests, plus paid tiers. | OpenAI's pricing page says Codex is included in ChatGPT Free, Go, Plus, Pro, Business, Edu and Enterprise plans. |
| Skill level* | Intermediate | Intermediate |
| License | Not stated in our sources | Apache-2.0 (Codex CLI) |
| Vibe badges* | Editor-based Agent mode | Terminal-native Agent mode |
| Official site | cursor.com ↗ | chatgpt.com/codex ↗ |
| Added to directory | 2026-10-15 | 2026-10-15 |
* Skill level and vibe badges are our own editorial labels, not benchmarks. Pricing notes come from each tool's own site and may have changed.
Which would you pick?
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