An honest Anysphere review (2026): Cursor after the SpaceX deal

You’ve probably heard about Anysphere's AI coding tool, Cursor. It shot up to a $9 billion valuation and then a $29.3 billion Series D, quickly becoming a poster child for the AI boom. In August 2026, Cursor announced it had been acquired by SpaceX. But if you look past the headlines, you’ll find a more complicated story filled with user backlash, some serious competition, and a few major risks. This review is here to separate the hype from what's really going on.

What is Anysphere (and its product, Cursor)?

Anysphere is the company that built Cursor, a code editor designed with AI at its very center. Think of it this way: instead of just being a plugin that adds AI features to your current editor, Cursor is a full-fledged fork of Microsoft's popular Visual Studio Code (VS Code). The whole thing was rebuilt to have AI woven into every part of the development process.

The company was started by a group of MIT classmates. They were first playing around with AI for mechanical engineering software, but after getting early access to OpenAI's GPT-4, they saw a bigger opportunity. They pivoted to software development and launched Cursor in March 2023. Their big idea isn't just about finishing your lines of code for you; it's about changing the way developers write, fix, and manage code altogether.

Cursor's key features

To get why there’s so much buzz, you have to look at what Cursor brings to the table. It wraps a familiar coding environment around some genuinely powerful AI features.

An AI-native editor on a familiar foundation

Probably the smartest thing Anysphere did was build Cursor on top of VS Code. This means developers get an interface they already know and can use all their existing extensions, which makes switching over pretty painless. But because they forked the code instead of just making a plugin, Anysphere has complete control. This lets them embed AI features much more deeply than an extension ever could, making for a smoother workflow with native Git and terminal access built right in.

Agent mode and autonomous coding

Cursor's most ambitious feature is called Agent Mode. The goal is for it to act like an autonomous junior developer on your team. You can give it a high-level instruction in plain English, like “add a dark mode toggle to the settings page,” and the AI agent gets to work.

1. It starts by analyzing your request and looking at your entire codebase for context.

2. Then, it maps out the code changes needed across different files.

3. It writes and edits the code itself.

4. Finally, it tries to verify the changes and will flag any errors it finds.

This whole process is powered by a Retrieval-Augmented Generation (RAG) system, which helps the AI actually understand your project's structure. This makes its suggestions a lot more relevant and less likely to be wildly off base.

Codebase chat and model routing

Cursor also has a chat panel where you can ask questions about your code. You can use "@" symbols to reference specific files or folders, giving the AI the exact context it needs. It can even search external documentation with "@Web" commands. On the backend, Cursor lets you choose models from OpenAI, Anthropic, Google and xAI, alongside its own Composer 2.5 and Grok 4.6 models.

Business model and pricing

Anysphere grew incredibly fast using a freemium model, but its pricing has also been a major source of drama.

Subscription plans

Cursor's pricing page lists a free Hobby plan and paid Individual, Teams and Enterprise plans. The Individual tier has three levels, and what you get mostly depends on how much model usage is included.

The model is built around token usage, not request counts. Cursor's docs say usage is billed at each model's API rate, and once your included amount runs out you can add on-demand usage or upgrade. That flexibility makes costs harder to predict, which is a headache for active developers.

The controversy around their pricing

While Anysphere's growth is impressive on paper, it hasn't been a smooth ride. A lot of users have voiced their frustration. Reviews on Gartner and posts on Medium talk about "unfriendly pricing changes" that annoyed many of its early, loyal users. This kind of feedback makes you wonder about their long-term customer retention. If users feel the pricing is unfair or always changing, they'll eventually look for alternatives, making that explosive growth tough to maintain.

Hype vs. reality

So, is Cursor the future of software development or just another overhyped tool in the AI bubble? The truth is probably somewhere in the middle.

The pros: It's fast, innovative, and a peek into the future

You can't deny that for a lot of tasks, Cursor is incredibly useful. It can definitely speed up development by handling repetitive boilerplate code and gives a pretty exciting glimpse of where AI-assisted programming is headed. Many users say the experience is intuitive and slick, making complex AI interactions feel like a natural part of the coding process.

The cons: Platform risk, shaky retention, and quality control

For all its strengths, Cursor is facing some big hurdles.

• Platform Risk: As many have noted in developer communities, Cursor is basically a well-designed layer on top of VS Code and third-party LLMs. This creates a huge risk. What happens when Microsoft, which owns VS Code and is OpenAI's biggest backer, decides to build similar AI agent features directly into its editor for free?

  Cursor is basically a well-designed layer on top of VS Code and third-party LLMs. This creates a huge risk. What happens when Microsoft, which owns VS Code and is OpenAI's biggest backer, decides to build similar AI agent features directly into its editor for free?

  Reddit

• Unproven Retention: The backlash over pricing shows that their user base might be fragile. Early adopters are great for initial buzz, but keeping customers for the long haul requires stability, trust, and predictable value, all areas where Anysphere has had some missteps.

• Quality Issues: For a tool valued at $29.3 billion, users report a surprising number of bugs. You can find forum discussions where people mention that core features like code search can be unreliable, and the overall polish has been a letdown for some in the community.

A cautionary tale: The risk of AI making things up

One of the most telling stories involved Cursor's own AI support agent. When users ran into a bug that kept logging them out, the support bot confidently told them it was because of a new "single-device policy." The problem? Anysphere later confirmed that policy didn't exist; it was a complete fabrication, an AI "hallucination." This incident is a perfect example of the reputational and real-world risks of deploying AI without having tight control over what it knows and says.

Key takeaways for picking any AI tool

The Anysphere story offers some important lessons for anyone thinking about bringing AI tools into their workflow, whether it’s for coding, marketing, or customer support.

1. Avoid getting locked into one platform. Tools that are just wrappers around other platforms, like Cursor is for VS Code, can put you in a tough spot. It's usually safer to pick tools that integrate with the systems you already use instead of forcing you to move to a whole new environment.

2. Demand transparency and control. The story of the hallucinating support bot shows what happens when an AI is a "black box." Your team needs to be able to control exactly what knowledge your AI uses and what it's allowed to do. Being able to test and simulate its behavior before it ever talks to a customer should be non-negotiable.

3. Look for predictable pricing. Billing models based on per-use or per-resolution fees make budgeting a nightmare. They basically penalize you for being successful. A clear, fixed pricing structure lets you scale without worrying about surprise bills.

These issues aren't just for AI coding tools. They’re important for any team looking to use AI, especially in high-stakes roles like customer support.

A better way to automate support with AI

For teams looking to sidestep these problems, eesel AI offers a more controlled and predictable way to bring AI into your customer service and internal support. It's a platform built from the ground up for control, integration, and stability.

• Seamless Integration: eesel AI doesn’t ask you to ditch your helpdesk. It works with it, offering one-click integrations for platforms like Zendesk, Intercom, Freshdesk, and Slack.

• Total Control: You get to decide exactly what information your AI uses, whether it's past tickets, your Confluence docs, or other knowledge sources. Our simulation mode even lets you test your AI on thousands of your past tickets, so you can see exactly how it will behave before it goes live.

• Predictable Pricing: eesel AI is one fixed monthly price sized to volume, from $299/month for 500 credits (1 credit per ticket or chat), with 100 free credits to start and no per-seat fee. Your bill won't jump up after a busy month, so you can grow your support operations without any financial surprises.

Learn from Anysphere and choose your AI partner wisely

Anysphere's journey is a fascinating, if cautionary, story from the current AI gold rush. It shows off the incredible things AI can do, but it also serves as a warning about the risks of a "move fast and break things" mindset. When you're ready to bring AI to your support team the right way, with complete control, easy integration, and predictable costs, give eesel AI a try.