Cursor
An AI code editor built on VS Code, and the one most freelance developers try first. Quick on routine work and good at reading an unfamiliar codebase, with client confidentiality and usage costs to settle before you point it at paid work.
Features
Cursor is a code editor with AI built in rather than bolted on. It is based on VS Code, so your extensions, keybindings and settings mostly come across, and the difference is that it can read your whole project, answer questions about it and make changes across several files at once. If you write code for clients, it is the AI tool most worth an honest trial.
How freelancers tend to use it
- Getting up to speed on an inherited codebase, asking where things live and how a feature works instead of reading it cold
- Routine work you would otherwise bill slowly: boilerplate, form validation, tests, migrations, small refactors across many files
- Handing a well-defined task to its agent and reviewing the diff, rather than typing every line yourself
- Chasing down a bug by pasting the error and letting it trace the likely cause through the code
- Working in a language or framework you know less well, where it fills the gaps in syntax and conventions
Worth knowing
Client code is the first thing to think about. Cursor sends code to AI models to do its job, and Privacy Mode, which stops your code being used for training, has to be switched on in settings. It is not on by default. Many client contracts and NDAs say where their code may go, so check yours before opening a client repository in it.
There is a free Hobby tier with limited agent use, and the Individual plan is $20 a month. Heavy agent use can run past what is included, and anything beyond that is billed on usage, so keep an eye on it during a busy month before you work it into a fixed-price quote.
It is fast and it is confidently wrong at times. It will write code that looks right and does not handle the edge case, or quietly change something you did not ask it to touch. You are still the one signing off the work, so read every diff as if a junior wrote it.
Speed changes the pricing conversation too. If you bill by the hour and Cursor halves the time a job takes, that is worth thinking through before it happens, not after.
Who it suits
Worth having if you build or maintain software for clients, especially across several codebases. If you only write the odd script, a general assistant like ChatGPT or Claude will cover it without changing your editor.