They're all based vscode, so the switching costs are fairly minimal? It'll get worse over time as they diverge, but at the moment they're all fairly similar AFAICT. It's starting to become noticeable that Cursor isn't picking up VSCode enhancements and fixes, but it's still quite minor.

Them all being based on VS Code makes it all the more frustrating to have to switch IDEs to use them.

I just use VSCode with copilot and don't worry about these re-skins. I don't get a lot of time to write code so I certainly don't have time to learn a new IDE for a small boost to my productivity when vscode gets me most of the way already.

If these re-skinned vscode IDEs have any good ideas I'm sure Microsoft will steal them anyway.

only if you use vscode, I think TUIs are a better option since a lot of us use other ides than vscode

Seems like Amazon started making this when Cursor was hot in the market, but now that CLI agents like Claude Code are taking over, Kiro will have an uphill battle.

It’s also not free or unlimited (though throttled) like Cursor and Claude Code using max plan.

I think IDE-based tools like Cursor, VS Code, etc, will win out in the long term, especially as the younger generation grows up.

In the short term though, I think CLI-based tools like Claude Code are taking off because hardcore developers see them as the last "vestige" they have in separating themselves from the "noobs." They know there's still a good portion of the public who don't know how to use the terminal, install packages, or even know what Linux is.

I think what is going to win is a tool independent to your ide to run your agents, it could be a cli or a gui.

You dreaming. The ui is gonna be like google for code. A voice chat and an instruction/search bar that is it. The model is the product

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Which is kind of ironic since the Amazon Q Developer CLI (which is essentially Claude Code with a slightly different wrapper) was released long before Claude Code and seems to mostly be flying under the radar.

Claude Code really was at the right place at the right time. Cursor started putting new models under their MAX plan that charges per use and I started getting worse results with Cursor over time as they optimized costs. I started looking into Cline/RooCode when Cursor did this because I knew they were in the squeezing customers stage now. I used those for a while with Sonnet thru OpenRouter, but Anthropic had the genius plan of bundling Claude Code with their Max plan. That made a lot of users jump ship from Cursor and the difference is night and day for me. Yes I pay 5 times more than I did with cursor, but still less than using API credits and the results for me have been superior.

Not really, even at work I got to test couple different AI solutions and the experience is always slightly different, even if the editor is the same, for the most part. It's the tiny things like using the prompt template, or opening the panel. (I could, of course, make an attempt to customize the keybindings, but why bother when it changes so quickly.)

The entire idea that “I’m too cool to use an IDE” I find kind of dumb. I was using a Turbo C IDE in college in 1994, Visual Studio until 2019 and since then VSCode.

I don’t think “I’m too cool to use an IDE” was the point being made. The point is that having to switch IDEs every time the number one AI coding tool changes would be annoying.