They are not the same product
Cursor is an IDE with an agent (Composer) and inline completion. Claude Code is Anthropic’s terminal agent. Comparing them as “which model is smarter” misses the point — they are different surfaces for the same class of model.
When Cursor wins
Reviewing diffs in place, mixing models (Sonnet 5 + GPT-5.6 Sol), and staying in a GUI. Composer is built for that loop. Pricing is a seat, not only tokens, so run the plans page before you assume it is cheaper.
When Claude Code wins
SSH boxes, CI, and people who already live in tmux. It is closer to “an engineer in a shell.” Token burn is the Claude API bill. Pair it with Sonnet 5 unless the task is Opus-grade.