Cursor vs Google Antigravity: The New AI IDE Showdown
Google enters the AI IDE market with Antigravity. How does it stack up against Cursor, the fastest-growing SaaS in history? An honest breakdown.
Cursor vs Google Antigravity: The New AI IDE Showdown
So, Google just dropped Antigravity on November 18, 2025.
And the timing? Pretty interesting.
This happened right after Cursor hit a $29.3 billion valuation, making it the fastest-growing SaaS in history.
Google's response? A free, "Agent-first" IDE that takes a completely different approach.
Here's the thing: the core difference isn't features. It's philosophy.
Cursor says: "Developer leads, AI assists." Antigravity says: "Delegate to AI, review the results."
Let's break this down.
What Makes Google Antigravity Different
The Agent-First Paradigm
Most AI coding assistants are basically chatbot sidebars.
Antigravity flips that. It treats AI agents as first-class citizens — the first IDE to do this. Launched alongside Gemini 3, it's currently in public preview and completely free.
Two core interfaces:
- Editor View: Familiar VS Code-like IDE with Tab completion and inline commands
- Manager View (Agent Manager): A "mission control" for managing multiple agents simultaneously — the only IDE with this feature
Here's what's wild: Antigravity agents work autonomously across editor, terminal, and browser. With Chrome extension integration, they can test UI directly, take screenshots, and record browser sessions to produce verifiable artifacts.
Supported AI Models
| Provider | Antigravity Models |
|---|---|
| Gemini 3 Pro, Gemini 3 Flash | |
| Anthropic | Claude Sonnet 4.5, Claude Opus 4.5 |
| OpenAI | GPT-5.2 |
Antigravity defaults to Gemini 3 Pro and offers some unique features: mockup image generation before code (Nano Banana), and MCP server support added on December 18, 2025.
Where Cursor Stands Today
Two Years of Production-Tested Reliability
Cursor launched in 2023. Since then, it's become the go-to for over half of Fortune 500 companies.
The numbers speak for themselves:
- $2.3 billion raised in Series D (November 2025)
- $29.3 billion valuation
- $1 billion ARR crossed
Core features:
- Composer: Multi-file edits and refactoring in under 30 seconds
- Tab Completion: Custom models with industry-leading acceptance rates (21% fewer suggestions, 28% higher acceptance)
- Multi-Agent: Run up to 8 agents simultaneously (isolated via git worktrees)
- Background/Cloud Agents: Code in the background without keeping your laptop open
Model Variety
| Provider | Cursor Models |
|---|---|
| OpenAI | GPT-5, GPT-4o, GPT-4.1, o3, o4-mini |
| Anthropic | Claude 4.5 Sonnet/Opus, Claude 3.7 Sonnet |
| Gemini 2.5 Pro, Gemini 3 Pro | |
| xAI | Grok Code, Grok 3 |
| Cursor Native | Composer, cursor-small, cursor-fast |
Cursor's Auto mode automatically picks the best model for each task. Unlimited usage on Pro/Ultra plans.
Pricing: Free vs Premium
Antigravity Pricing (December 2025)
| Tier | Price | Rate Limits |
|---|---|---|
| Free users | $0/mo | Weekly reset |
| Google AI Pro | $19.99/mo | Resets every 5 hours, higher limits |
| Google AI Ultra | Higher tier | Resets every 5 hours, max limits |
During public preview, all features are free. Google calls it "generous" usage, but some users report hitting limits in just 20 minutes during complex reasoning tasks.
Cursor Pricing (December 2025)
| Plan | Price | What You Get |
|---|---|---|
| Hobby (Free) | $0 | 1-week Pro trial, limited Tab/Agent requests |
| Pro | $20/mo | Unlimited Tab, $20 credit pool, Background Agents |
| Pro+ | $60/mo | Pro + 3x usage for OpenAI/Claude/Gemini |
| Ultra | $200/mo | Pro + 20x all models, early feature access |
| Teams | $40/user/mo | Central billing, SAML/OIDC SSO, RBAC |
Worth noting: Cursor switched from request-based to usage-based credits in June 2025. Some community pushback, but it's more transparent now.
What Developers Are Actually Saying
On X (Twitter)
Antigravity fans:
"Google just dropped Antigravity, their Cursor IDE competitor. The crazy part? It is totally FREE to use!" — @immasiddx
"Initial impressions: Antigravity runs way faster, consuming very little of my system's resources. Cursor is a resource hog on my machine." — @maietta
"Agent Manager is the future of IDEs... more radical and powerful than Cursor." — @laogui
Antigravity concerns:
"Antigravity has HUGE potential, BUT... Keeps terminating with errors. Hit usage limits in 20 minutes. Cursor just works. Sticking with Cursor until Antigravity matures." — @chris_telescope
On Reddit & DEV.to
Cursor love: Users report 1.5–2x productivity gains, praise .cursorrules for project-specific instructions, and call the full-codebase chat a "superpower."
Cursor complaints: Recent updates brought more crashes and freezes. Slow customer support. Confusion around fast vs slow query limits.
Antigravity reality check (DEV.to):
"The persistent instability, frequent crashes, and code corruption risks suggest that Antigravity is still in a very early/buggy build phase. Until these core issues are resolved, I cannot recommend it over polished alternatives like Cursor." — Tashfia
Real-World Benchmarks
Skywork.ai Head-to-Head (Node/React/TS Stack)
| Task | Antigravity | Cursor |
|---|---|---|
| New feature dev | 14min generate + 8min review | 18min (with developer input) |
| Next.js + Supabase | 42 seconds | 68 seconds |
| Endpoint creation | 30min (12min cleanup needed) | 38min (no cleanup needed) |
| i18n refactoring | Over-edited, had to rollback | 24min, tests passed |
| Precision | 70% automation achieved | Follows existing patterns |
The takeaway: "Antigravity can be faster when its plan is correct, but Cursor is more consistently quick because you stay in the loop."
Gemini 3 Benchmark Performance
| Benchmark | Antigravity (Gemini 3) |
|---|---|
| SWE-bench Verified | 76.2% |
| WebDev Arena Elo | 1487 |
| Terminal-Bench 2.0 | 54.2% |
The Philosophy Gap
| Aspect | Cursor | Antigravity |
|---|---|---|
| Approach | Augments manual coding | Automates entire dev tasks |
| Feels like... | "Pair programming with a fast junior" | "Managing a small dev team" |
| Best for | Craft + velocity | Delegation + exploration |
| Developer control | High (surgical, obedient) | Low (autonomous, delegated) |
A Medium analyst put it perfectly:
"Cursor is the tool you trust. Antigravity is the tool you gamble with."
"Most realistic vibe coders will end up using both: Cursor for production builds, Antigravity for experimentation."
Security & Enterprise Features
| Feature | Cursor | Antigravity |
|---|---|---|
| SSO (SAML/OIDC) | ✅ Business/Enterprise | ❓ Not announced |
| Audit logs | ✅ | ❓ Not announced |
| Admin dashboard | ✅ | ❓ Not announced |
| SOC 2 certified | ✅ Yes | ❓ Unconfirmed |
| Privacy mode | ✅ Business plan | Limited |
| On-premise | ❌ | ❌ |
Cursor is enterprise-ready. Over half of Fortune 500 companies use it.
Antigravity offers TLS 1.3 encryption, AES-256 at rest, and is working toward FedRAMP certification. But it's still in preview — be careful with sensitive production data.
Which Tool Is Right for You?
Choose Cursor if you need:
- Production stability — it just works
- Complex legacy codebase navigation
- Precise refactoring and debugging
- Tight Git workflow integration
- Enterprise security and audit requirements
- To stay in control of every change
Choose Antigravity if you need:
- Fast MVP/prototype generation
- To experiment with agent-first workflows
- Budget-friendly options (currently free)
- UI development with browser automation
- Boilerplate and CRUD task automation
- To delegate work to AI and review later
What's Next
Cursor: The Fastest-Growing SaaS Ever
- November 13, 2025: Series D, $2.3B raised, $29.3B valuation
- Investors include Google and NVIDIA (interesting timing, right before Antigravity)
- $1B ARR crossed, 100x enterprise revenue growth in 2025
- No IPO plans yet (per CEO Michael Truell)
Antigravity: Google's Aggressive Play
- November 18, 2025: Launched alongside Gemini 3
- Built by Windsurf team, acquired for $2.4B (CEO Varun Mohan joined Google)
- December 18, 2025: MCP server support added
- Team/Business plans coming via Google Workspace AI Ultra for Business
The Bottom Line: Trust vs Potential
Right now, Cursor is the safe bet. Two years of production use. Mature enterprise features. Precise code editing.
Antigravity is the wild card. Agent Manager is innovative. Free pricing is compelling. But the instability and bugs? Still a problem.
The most practical approach? Use both.
Cursor for production. Antigravity for experimentation.
Here's something interesting: Google invested in Cursor, then launched a competitor. That tells you the AI IDE market is still wide open. The next 6 months of Antigravity's stabilization will determine how this plays out.
One More Thing: What About Landing Pages?
These AI IDEs are amazing for building apps. But here's the thing:
Your app needs a face.
A landing page that makes visitors stop scrolling. One that converts in the first 3 seconds.
That's not what Cursor or Antigravity are built for. They're code-first tools.
If you need a beautiful, high-converting landing page without touching code, check out Caramell.
Describe your vision in one prompt. Get a stunning page in 30 seconds. With shaders, GSAP animations, and typography that actually looks good.
Build your app with Cursor or Antigravity. Create its face with Caramell.
Your first generation is free. No card required.
Built by the Caramell team — because your website deserves a beautiful face.