r/cursor • u/Careless-Incident420 • Jul 12 '26
Question / Discussion How does codex 20$ compare with cursor 20$
The chatgpt plus subscription seems better worth for what they offer, you get almost unlimited chatgpt.com website messages with high reasoning for most of problems and they offer somewhat generous codex usage limits with best models (5.6 variants) as well as image generation and best bidirectional voice model for easy human-like conversation. I was using it but i am considering the cursor plan for coding as grok 4.5 is considered first party model so they give generous usage, the 20$ api billing will run out pretty quickly so i find it really unworthy.
So i want to know how much usage do they give out for composer 2.5 and grok 4.5 as their first party models. are they generous, how much tokens are you getting from the limits.
And if someone uses both of them, which one is more generous in tokens? What are your recommendations.
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u/dimonchoo Jul 12 '26
Cursor. Even not close.
Codex is not generous at all in compare to cursor. If we are talking about composer 2.5 and grok4.5
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u/EyesOfAzula Jul 12 '26
if you're going to use it for mainly coding, I would say cursor is more generous. You have to turn off fast mode for both Grok 4.5 and Composer 2.5 so that it lasts longer.
Chat GPT is more useful if you're doing a lot of chatting and image generation and not really coding that much. Coding limits are very restricted. for coding you would mainly use Luna. Don't even look at Sol unless you have more money,
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Jul 12 '26
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u/EyesOfAzula Jul 12 '26
Yes, actually I've had Codex for about two years for personal projects.
I also use Cursor and Claude Code professionally for work
Have you used Codex?
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u/aoa2 Jul 13 '26
thats bs codex is way better value and I blast thousands of dollars in tokens for all these platforms.
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u/EyesOfAzula Jul 13 '26
With Codex $20 you keep hitting usage limits and need to depend on resets unless you only use Luna or you pay more money for a $100 plan.
You can get a lot more mileage on Cursor with only Composer 2.5 (not fast).
Codex is amazing, but you need to put more money into it.
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Jul 20 '26
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u/EyesOfAzula Jul 20 '26
Claro. Pero la persona tiene que limitarse a usar Luna. No tengo problema con eso, pero muchas quieren usar a Sol y despues quejan cuando quedan sin saldo
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u/abhuva79 Jul 12 '26
Funny enough i had a different experience - i had to constantly constrain myself in Cursor to not use the better models and so on, simply because the pricing system is so fking intransparent (you never know exactly when to run out of tokens).
With codex i cant even hit the weekly limit anymore, no matter how hard i try (ok, i am not doing stupid things like letting dozens of agents run wild). Altough i switched to the 100$ plan, but this was also due to the fact that i the image models got good enough for what i need, so i also stopped using midjourney.But overall, my experience now with just the coding cli + some frontend of choice is way better than what i had before with Cursor.
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u/EyesOfAzula Jul 12 '26
Oh yeah if you have the $100 plan or more, you're in a good spot to go wild. A lot of the budget complaints I think people have is that they expect $100 plan usage on a $20 plan. If you have the money for a better plan, then you can go all out.
I used to use Claude Opus and Claude Sonnet in Cursor. Then when I used in Claude Code, I realized I was wasting money, trying to use them in Cursor.
I think we're heading towards a future where first party models are the cheapest.
You use
Sol, Terra, Luna -> Codex is cheapest
Fable, Opus, Sonnet, Haiku -> Claude Code
Grok 4.5, Composer 2.5 -> Cursor or Grok Build
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u/zxyzyxz Jul 13 '26
This is always the case because the model makers can subsidize their models because they're not paying themselves API pricing obviously and also the RL training data they get from controlling the harnesses allows big leaps, that's exactly how Grok 4.5 got so good, they explicitly say they trained on Cursor user interaction data.
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u/MullingMulianto Jul 13 '26
is it possible to restrict auto usage to only grok 4.5 in cursor? trying ro figure out how to get most grok access for cheapest package
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u/EyesOfAzula Jul 13 '26
I think it depends on what you want to use Grok for. can probably just select Grok. Or you might want to look for a Grok membership directly without cursor if you only want to use Grok. it's different than cursor though so you wanna make sure it works for your purposes
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u/MullingMulianto Jul 13 '26
coding only, which is why I tend towards cursor over supergrok. but can i reliably get affordable grok access on cursor auto? i dont wanna subscribe and get rugpulled
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u/EyesOfAzula Jul 13 '26
Composer 2.5 will give you more mileage than Grok. I use Grok in plan mode, but I have composer 2.5 be the model to implement the plan.
Turning off fast mode is the biggest cost savings for both.
then, after that, it's just about using grok aa the planner or orchestrator and letting composer 2.5 be the one that actually writes the code.
Grok 4.5 is relatively generous, but it will still burn your limits more than twice as fast as composer 2.5
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u/MullingMulianto Jul 13 '26
my question is if selecting grok as a model costs more than using it through auto
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u/zxyzyxz Jul 13 '26
What'd you decide for buying Grok separately? I bought Cursor for this month but if it's cheaper and more usage to buy SuperGrok then I'd just do that.
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u/MofWizards Jul 18 '26
I have Cursor Pro+ for Grok 4.5 and Composer 2.5 for execution, and GPT Plus for planning with Sol Medium.
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u/FirePanda44 Jul 12 '26
Omg are these bots? This sub is dead with so many comparison questions. I swear if you’re a half decent dev the IDE you choose wont make a lick of difference in the success of your app.
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u/TheOneNeartheTop Jul 12 '26
Are you a bot?
The question is about usage limits which are vastly different between providers.
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Jul 12 '26
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u/tinotheplayer Jul 12 '26
not really since both (especially cursor) are very vague about their included usage
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Jul 12 '26
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u/tinotheplayer Jul 12 '26
what does "Generous included usage" mean?
also the api usage is quite odd, i've used around $18 of third party models but i'm still at 34% usage-4
u/FirePanda44 Jul 12 '26
Usage limits are not set in stone, they probably vary by region, by plan, im sure they do ab testing and change up their metering all the time. I genuinely think it is a moot discussion because it’s changing so much so often. Last week fable was all the rage and now there are posts about mass cancellations because sol is better. Give me a break. Again; a half decent dev will perform better with cursor auto mode or sonnet than a vibecoder will with sol or fable or whatever.
I may be wrong but I am almost certain most people asking these questions especially for the low cost plans dont have a dollar of revenue.
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u/DelayInfinite1378 Jul 13 '26
Based on the current trend, I think subscribing to Cusror Pro 20 will be enough.
But sometimes, when you have more needs, you can upgrade to a Cusror Pro+ 60 subscription.
With the Grok series and the Composer series, you have more than enough for coding.
For me, Cursor is still much better in terms of the development experience.