Cursor vs Kiro
A side-by-side comparison of Cursor and Kiro, two IDE tools, drawn from Ignaite's continuously-verified listings.
Compared from listings verified as of
At a glance
The honest brief
Cursor
Pioneered agentic, multi-file editing in a familiar VS Code fork — frontier models bundled, no API key wrangling.
- Inherits the VS Code extension ecosystem
- Frontier models bundled in one plan
- Strong multi-file agent + tab completion
- BYO key supported
- Closed source (the editor itself)
- Heavier on usage limits at higher tiers
- No first-party Linux/mobile parity gaps
Kiro
Spec-first: writes requirements/design/tasks .md artifacts to disk before coding, unlike prompt-to-diff editors.
- Durable spec artifacts before implementation
- Built on Code OSS — VS Code extensions transfer
- Agent hooks automate actions on file events
- Runs on Claude Sonnet models
- Young product; agent still maturing
- Spec workflow adds overhead for small tasks
- Free tier capped at limited monthly interactions