Cursor

Category: AI Coding/Build

The AI code editor marketers use to ship small tools.

Cursor is an AI-native code editor, a fork of VS Code with models wired deeply into the editing experience rather than bolted on as a chat panel. It understands your whole codebase, makes multi-file edits, and runs agentic tasks that plan and execute changes. It is in this directory because a growing number of marketers use it to build and maintain their own websites, landing pages, scripts and internal tools rather than queuing for engineering time. It now runs its own in-house models alongside the frontier ones. Importantly for this directory's MCP filter, Cursor is a major MCP client rather than a server: it consumes MCP servers from other tools, and runs a marketplace listing them, but publishes nothing others can call. In mid-2026 SpaceX announced an agreement to acquire its parent company.

Our verdict

The best AI coding environment available, and worth knowing about even if you do not write code daily, because the gap between a marketer who can edit their own site and one who cannot is widening. Understanding the whole codebase rather than one file is what separates it from a chat window, and the agentic mode genuinely completes multi-step changes. For this audience the key point is the MCP direction: Cursor is the biggest consumer of MCP servers around, so every tool in this directory with a server can be driven from it, but it publishes none itself. That is easy to miscategorise. One practical limit worth knowing is that it caps out at roughly forty active MCP tools across all connected servers, above which tools are silently dropped, so do not connect everything at once. And the announced SpaceX acquisition of its parent is a genuine procurement and data governance question for a UK buyer, so factor it in before putting client work through it.

Best for: Technically-minded marketers who maintain their own site or build their own tools and want an AI editor that understands the whole project.

Pros

• The best AI coding environment available, understanding whole projects rather than single files
• A major MCP client, so every tool here with a server can be driven from it
• Agentic mode completes genuine multi-step changes
• In-house models alongside frontier ones, reducing dependency
• Free tier is usable for light work
• Lets a technical marketer maintain their own site without engineering time

Cons

• A code editor, not a marketing tool, so it sits at the edge of this directory
• Consumes MCP servers but publishes none, which is easy to miscategorise
• Caps at roughly forty active MCP tools, above which tools are silently dropped
• SpaceX announced an agreement to acquire its parent, which raises procurement questions
• Usage beyond the pooled allowance bills per token and is hard to forecast
• No UK data residency commitment found

Pricing: Free, then from $20/mo (Freemium)

Rating: 4.5/5