So it's been a week since I have been trying to use and compare AI code editors and tools extensively to integrate into my coding routine.
Claude Code has been the most successful, but it's way too expensive compared to Cursor or Windsurf. So Cursor is the winner here.
The judgement was based on the ability to convert my markdown based blog to a NextJS application with search and firebase functionality. It was able to provide elaborate steps on converting markdown to HTML, creating the right routes, changing the theme of the website, and so much more.
One major complaint that I have with this type of development is that you don't own any part of the app. It's all owned by the tool. So even if you have worked on the app for sometime, chances are that you would still not know a lot of things about the codebase. So the incremental pace and value that you pick up as you grow with a codebase is going to decrease even further since changes are going to come way faster than you can absorb it.
In so many places, the AI tends to take shortcuts to reach the end goal. One major flaw was the most of the tools tried to disable type checks completely for the app since it was unable to fix the problem. In other cases, for few problems, it tends to make the problem even worse by getting into a loopy state.