Hooked on Cursor App? It Might Just Be the Model Behind It

I’ve been experimenting with the Cursor app lately and was immediately impressed. The productivity boost, the coding suggestions, the feeling of having a smart partner alongside me. It all felt next level.

But after digging a little deeper, I realized something important: the real magic wasn’t necessarily Cursor itself. It was the underlying model: Claude Sonnet 4.

And here’s the kicker: this isn’t unique to Cursor. The same model is available through GitHub Copilot, which is already widely integrated into our workflow via VS Code.

The Allure of a New Tool

Cursor does a great job at presenting itself as a game changer. The interface feels fresh, and the tight integration into coding tasks makes it easy to assume that the app itself is the secret sauce. That “wow” factor is real and worth appreciating.

The Model Matters More

When I compared results more closely, it became clear that Claude Sonnet 4 was doing the heavy lifting. The high quality completions, nuanced code refactoring, and better context awareness were all thanks to the model powering the experience. Cursor wrapped it in a sleek package, but the intelligence was the same one accessible in Copilot.

Why This Matters for Teams

For an individual, chasing shiny new apps can be fun. But at the organizational level, adopting tools that duplicate functionality creates overhead: new onboarding, extra subscriptions, and fragmented workflows. Since we already use Copilot in VS Code and it provides access to the same Claude Sonnet 4 our team can get the same benefits without multiplying tools.

Takeaway

It’s easy to get hooked on a new app when the experience feels magical. But sometimes the magic isn’t in the wrapping. It’s in the engine under the hood. For us, that means sticking with Copilot in VS Code ensures we’re already benefiting from the very thing that makes Cursor feel so powerful.