The short answer
- Copilot Pro costs $10/mo against Cursor Pro at $20/mo, with agent mode, a CLI and code review in VS Code and JetBrains: a modeled first-year saving of $70. the math
- Light use? Cursor's free Hobby plan has limited agent requests and Composer, a modeled saving of $228 if it covers you. the math
- Copilot Free gives 2,000 completions a month; if that's enough, drop Copilot Pro for a modeled saving of $108. the math
- Cline and Aider are free, Apache-2.0 coding agents that use your own model API key: no seat, but you pay the model provider per token. the math
Four ways to stop paying for Cursor and GitHub Copilot
A cheaper vendor
Cheaper plan Cursor (free tier): saves $228 in year one (+2 more below)
Open source
Cline: not priced yet (+1 more below)
An agent skill
Nothing in the catalog fits this job yet.
Replace with AI
Nothing in the catalog fits this job yet.
The best option of each kind, modeled, not measured: each figure links its math. Keeping Cursor and GitHub Copilot is a valid answer too.
Who should switch, and who shouldn't
Switch if
- You use an agent in the editor, Tab completions and chat with your codebase, not cloud agents or a review bot. recipe
- You work in JetBrains or plain VS Code and don't need Cursor's editor: Copilot works in both. the math
- Your usage is bursty: with your own API key you pay per token instead of a monthly seat. the math
Stay if
- You use Cursor's cloud or background agents, its CLI agent, the code review bot, or MCP, rules and skills heavily. recipe
- Your team relies on centralized billing and administration in Cursor Teams. cursor.com
- You burn through premium-model requests: Copilot Pro includes 1,500 AI credits a month, and more needs Pro+ or Max. docs.github.com
What Cursor and GitHub Copilot cost today
List prices from each vendor's pricing page, as stored in the Stackcut catalog. Each price links its source.
| Plan | Billed monthly | Billed yearly (per month) | What you get |
|---|---|---|---|
| Cursor Pro (Individual) | $20/mo | not shown | Extended agent limits, frontier models, cloud agents; on-demand usage billed at API rates |
| Cursor Pro+ | $60/mo | not shown | Pro Plus: more included usage |
| Cursor Ultra | $200/mo | not shown | Highest individual included usage |
| Cursor Teams | $40/user/mo | not shown | Standard seat; centralized billing, SAML/OIDC SSO, Bugbot |
| GitHub Copilot Pro | $10/mo | not shown | 1,000 base + 500 flex = 1,500 AI credits/mo; unlimited completions |
| GitHub Copilot Pro+ | $39/mo | not shown | 3,900 base + 3,100 flex = 7,000 AI credits/mo; premium models |
| GitHub Copilot Business | $19/user/mo | not shown | $19 per granted seat; 1,900 AI credits per user/mo |
The alternatives, ranked
5 ways out, ranked by modeled saving in the first year after setup and upkeep (3 priced). Modeled, not measured: each figure links the math on the recipe page.
- The recipes model 1 developer against Cursor Pro at $20/mo and Copilot Pro at $10/mo. Per-token agents aren't priced, because the bill depends on your usage. recipe
Compare a specific alternative
Considering a specific destination? Read its checked comparison before deciding what to move.
- Cursor vs Aider Checked migration details, public switching accounts.
- Cursor vs Cline Checked migration details, public switching accounts.
- Cursor vs GitHub Copilot Checked migration details, public switching accounts.
- GitHub Copilot vs Cline Checked migration details, public switching accounts.
What AI coding costs at 1, 5 and 20 developers
Individual plans are one per person; team plans are per seat and add central billing. Bring-your-own-key agents have no seat price.
| Option | List price | 1 developer | 5 developers | 20 developers |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Cursor Pro (Individual) today | $20/mobilled monthly | $20 | $100one plan per person | $400one plan per person |
| Cursor Teams today | $40/developer/mobilled monthly | $40 | $200 | $800 |
| GitHub Copilot Pro today | $10/mobilled monthly | $10 | $50one plan per person | $200one plan per person |
| GitHub Copilot Business today | $19/developer/mobilled monthly | $19 | $95 | $380 |
| GitHub Copilot Free2,000 completions a month | $0free plan | $0free tier | $0free tier | $0free tier |
| Cursor Hobbylimited agent requests | $0free plan | $0free tier | $0free tier | $0free tier |
| Cline or Aiderplus per-token model costs | $0 licenseApache-2.0 | $0+ your server | $0+ your server | $0+ your server |
How people actually left Cursor and GitHub Copilot
14 public accounts of leaving Cursor and GitHub Copilot: 10 switched, 2 evaluated, 1 gave up, 1 switching. Summaries are ours; each links the original, and each was checked against its page before it appeared here.
First-person Chinese-language account of re-testing the AI toolchain after Cursor lost context on large refactors. Settled on a hybrid: Cursor for daily business code, Aider as the main tool for backend/data/ops, Cline for heavy agent tasks. Page promotes the author's own API aggregation service (ofox.io), so treat cost claims accordingly. cnblogs (OfoxAI blog)
First-person account of moving daily pair programming from Cursor to Aider because real work lived in the terminal. Kept Cursor installed for IDE-style work; Aider became the daily driver for terminal-first coding thanks to git-native commits and model freedom. TPS Worldwide LLC (builderai.tools)
First-person evaluation across three months: Cursor remains the default pick if money is no object; Cline is 'the upset' for cost-conscious founders already paying for Claude, at the price of polish. Author name not shown on the page. Fewer Tools
Long, detailed side-by-side by a ~1T-token/year Cursor power user who ran out of Cursor tokens and switched daily work to Copilot (Insider Preview). Still finds Cursor's UX and orchestration far more polished; updated in April that Insider Preview fixed most complaints. Sentiment mixed, outcome completed (still uses both). DEV Community
A Copilot Pro user ran the cost comparison himself: he tried Cline's agent with a direct Claude Sonnet 4 API key but found the Copilot route slightly cheaper for the same model, so he stayed on Copilot and asked others for their numbers. A cost-driven evaluation that did not turn into a switch. Reddit
Community-forum account of leaving Cursor after the 30-day trial for GitHub Copilot on price grounds. Initial feature gap (checkpoint restore) has since narrowed. Note: the same thread contains promotional replies for the forum host's automation product, so treat the enthusiasm distribution with care. Latenode Community
Show 8 more
Reply in the same Latenode community thread: eight months on Copilot after switching from Cursor, praising debugging, refactoring and GitHub Issues integration; notes a two-week adjustment to the new workflow. Same astroturf caution as the parent thread applies. Latenode Community
Testing inside Cline, the developer found identical models produced decent output via OpenRouter or other APIs but broken output when routed through the Copilot Pro license via the VS Code LM API. They now route everything through other providers and are on the verge of cancelling Copilot Pro. Reddit
(older account, March 2025) Full-stack developer's 3-month daily-use comparison: Cline is the primary agent for big changes, run inside Cursor so Cursor still provides tab completions. Considers the per-token cost worth it versus Cursor's context-limited flat rate. Author handle not visible in the fetched page. Reddit (r/ChatGPTCoding)
After several days comparing the Copilot agent preview against Cline (local Qwen 14B and Sonnet 3.5 via Copilot API), the developer stuck with neither: Cline's exit-condition handling and buggy checkpoint UI eroded trust, and both agents failed on nonstandard environments. Kept chat-and-autocomplete workflow. Reddit
A developer who started on GitHub Copilot, briefly tried Windsurf, then switched to Roo Cline (a Cline fork) and reported being genuinely amazed, with co-workers agreeing Copilot was 'just improved autocomplete'. Destination is the Cline lineage rather than Cline itself. Reddit
(older account, July 2024) Cursor forum user reports being unable to go back to Cursor after using Aider, citing context limits and a copy-paste-heavy Apply workflow. Frames Aider's per-request pricing as worth it even at high volume. Cursor Forum
Reddit user (r/CLine) switched from a $20/month Cursor Pro subscription to Cline after update fatigue, and reports Cline is way better for their workflow at equal or lower cost through OpenRouter. Author handle and exact post date were not visible in the fetched page. Reddit (r/CLine)
A 24-engineer Swiss FinTech replaced its Copilot-only standard with a hybrid stack in four weeks: Cursor for all devs, Claude Code for 8 seniors, and Cline BYOK on a self-hosted Apertus 70B for compliance-critical banking repos. Velocity rose 41% and review wait fell 63%; Cline covered the sovereign-repo niche, not the whole migration. (Vendor-published case study.) mazdek
How to leave Cursor and GitHub Copilot
Export first, then cancel. Every step links the vendor's own help page, checked on the date shown.
How to leave Cursor
Export first
- No export path documented yet.
Cancel
- cursor.com/dashboard/billing → Manage Subscription → Cancel Subscription → confirm.
- Subscriptions bought in the iOS or Android app are cancelled through Apple or Google Play. On Teams, an admin cancels.
- Takes effect
- You keep paid features until the end of the billing period; then the account reverts to the free Hobby plan.
- Refunds
- Individual plans: only if the charge was in the last 14 days and you haven't used the subscription in that period.
- After you cancel
- Cancelling doesn't delete your account or any local project files.
How to leave GitHub Copilot
Export first
- No export path documented yet.
Cancel
- Profile picture → Settings → Billing and licensing → Licensing (or Plans and usage) → GitHub Copilot → Manage subscription → Cancel subscription.
- Takes effect
- At the end of the current billing cycle.
- After you cancel
- You're moved to Copilot Free.
Not covered by the paths above, per the recipe: Frontier model choice, Cloud/background agents, CLI agent, Code review bot, MCP, rules and skills, Cloud coding agent, Pull request code review, Copilot CLI, Multiple model choice. If you rely on one of these, keep the incumbent or check the path closely.
Moving your data, destination by destination
What each destination's importer carries over, what it leaves behind, and any help it offers switchers.
To Aider
Community guide openhelm.ai · Tools: aider-chat (pip), CONVENTIONS.md, git
Moves: project rules (.cursorrules / .cursor/rules) (partial); git history and repo (full). openhelm.ai
Doesn't move: Cursor chat history, Memories, Composer threads; Cursor Tab autocomplete (no terminal equivalent); Composer chat history and Cursor Memories; .mdc YAML frontmatter semantics (rule text must be re-cut for Aider); Cursor codebase index (Aider uses a repo map instead). openhelm.ai
Watch out for:
- Aider will not run outside a git repository openhelm.ai
- Auto-commits can spam a team repo's git log; use --no-auto-commits when history is shared openhelm.ai
- Small local models may fail to produce edits in the formats Aider expects openhelm.ai
To Cline
Official guide cline.bot · Tools: Cline VS Code extension, shell cp command
Moves: legacy .cursorrules file (full); Cursor rules in .cursor/rules/*.mdc (partial); MCP server configuration (partial); AGENTS.md (full). cline.bot
Doesn't move: Cursor Tab completion (Cline has none); Composer chat history and Cursor Memories; Cursor background/cloud agents (Cline runs one supervised agent at a time); .mdc YAML frontmatter activation modes must be re-expressed as Cline conditional rules or plain markdown. cline.bot
Watch out for:
- .cursor/rules/*.mdc files require manual migration, unlike legacy .cursorrules which is automatic cline.bot
- Rules consume context tokens; Cline docs advise keeping them concise cline.bot
- Per-token costs scale with actual usage - Cline adds no platform fee ('pay what the provider charges... and none more'), so heavy agentic months can exceed a flat subscription cline.bot
Community guide copilot-alternatives.com · Tools: Cline VS Code extension, Model provider API key (Anthropic/OpenAI/Google)
Moves: VS Code settings, keybindings, extensions (full); custom instructions (.github/copilot-instructions.md) (partial). copilot-alternatives.com
Doesn't move: Inline autocomplete (Cline has none; pair with a free Tab-completion source); Months of accumulated Copilot custom-instruction context (the guide warns against deleting it without remapping first); GitHub Issues-to-draft-PR automation, if Copilot is fully cancelled. copilot-alternatives.com
Watch out for:
- No importer exists: every tool uses a different instructions file, so remapping is manual copilot-alternatives.com
- Cline and Kilo Code provide no inline autocomplete at all copilot-alternatives.com
- Guides referencing Continue.dev are stale: it was acquired by Cursor and shut down in June 2026 copilot-alternatives.com
Switching help: Cline natively reads Cursor rules at no cost: legacy .cursorrules works automatically with no migration, .cursor/rules/*.mdc files move with a one-line cp -r into .clinerules/, and AGENTS.md and .windsurfrules are also auto-detected. The extension itself is free. cline.bot
To GitHub Copilot
Official guide github.com · Tools: Repo Architect agent (/migrate command), .github/copilot-instructions.md
Moves: Cursor rules (.cursor/ directory) (partial); AGENTS.md standalone file (full); .vscode settings (partial); MCP servers (partial). github.com
Doesn't move: Cursor chat history, Memories, Composer threads; Cursor Tab model behavior (Copilot has its own completions model); Composer chat history and Cursor Memories; .mdc semantic/always-on activation modes have no exact Copilot equivalent (semantic rule auto-pull was missing as of early 2026; Agent Skills added later only auto-pull). github.com
Watch out for:
- .mdc activation modes do not map 1:1 to Copilot instructions github.com
- Copilot instructions had no semantic auto-pull as of early 2026 (Agent Skills auto-pull only, no explicit reference) per a switcher report github.com
- Newer models can be opt-in until subscription admins enable them (switcher report) github.com
To AI Perks
Switching help: Third-party directory of free AI-credit programs (Anthropic startup credits $1,000-$25,000+, cloud founder bundles, education tracks) marketed alongside a step-by-step Copilot-to-Cline migration guide; claims an effective $0 cost for 6-12 months. Not an offer from Cline or GitHub. getaiperks.com
From each destination's own migration docs and switching pages, plus community write-ups where no official guide exists, each checked against its page. Confirm terms on the linked page before you rely on an offer.
Open-source and forkable options
- Cline: Free open-source agent in VS Code with your own model API key. No server; you pay the model provider per token, so cost depends on use. License: Apache-2.0 · source code
- Aider: Free terminal coding agent with your own model API key. No server; you pay the model provider per token, so cost depends on use. License: Apache-2.0 · source code
Open source means no license fee, not free to run: the server, backups and upgrades are yours. Read the license before you fork or resell; several of these are open-core or source-available.
FAQ
How do I cancel Cursor?
cursor.com/dashboard/billing → Manage Subscription → Cancel Subscription. You keep paid features until the period ends, then drop to Hobby; your account and local files stay. cursor.com
Can I get a refund from Cursor?
On individual plans, only within 14 days of the charge and only if you haven't used the subscription in that period. cursor.com
How do I cancel GitHub Copilot Pro?
Settings → Billing and licensing → Licensing → GitHub Copilot → Manage subscription → Cancel subscription. You move to Copilot Free at the end of the billing cycle. docs.github.com
Are Cline and Aider really free?
The tools are Apache-2.0 and cost nothing. You pay your model provider per token, so the cost depends on how much you use them. the math
Keep reading
Check your own stack
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Or ask your agent
Connect the Stackcut MCP server (https://stackcut.io/mcp, no API key) and ask: “Our 5 developers each pay for Cursor Pro and GitHub Copilot Pro. Which should we keep?”
audit_stack({"services": [
{"vendor": "cursor", "seats": 5},
{"vendor": "github_copilot", "seats": 5}]})