Cursor vs OpenAI Codex

For a newer developer, a low and predictable entry price matters most. OpenAI Codex's cheapest paid plan is $8/mo against Cursor's $20/mo, and Codex publishes its entry usage as part of Plus ($20), while Cursor does not publish an entry allowance. Both have a free plan: Cursor Hobby offers limited Agent requests and Composer, and Codex Free at $0 offers GPT-6 Luna at Standard speed in the desktop app. Cursor does pull back ground with published checkpoints and rollback, an easy undo Codex does not list, and it runs as a VS Code fork desktop IDE. The lower entry price tips it.

What matters most to a security review is whether company code trains models. Cursor states that with Privacy Mode on, code is not used for training, while OpenAI Codex's published training policy only reads "Business" without a clear commitment. Both list a self-hostedself-host - Run the software on your own servers instead of the vendor’s cloud. or VPC deployment option, though Codex's is vendor claimed. Both offer SSO: Cursor has SAML/OIDC SSO on Teams ($40/user/mo) and above, Codex has SAML SSO and MFA on Business. Cursor also publishes a zero data retention option, which Codex does not. Both report SOC 2 and admin audit logs.

Both free plans allow real work: Cursor Hobby gives limited Agent requests and access to Composer, while OpenAI Codex Free at $0 offers GPT-6 Luna at Standard speed in the desktop app. Both let you bring your own API key, so neither locks you out once the allowance runs low. The difference comes after that: Codex's cheapest paid plan is $8/mo versus Cursor's $20/mo, and Codex runs local models, a no-bill path Cursor does not publish.

The deciding factor here is whether the agent can run local models at all. OpenAI Codex says yes, while Cursor does not publish local model support. Codex also lists a range of model providers, starting with OpenAI and Azure OpenAI plus five more, and its Codex CLI is licensed Apache-2.0, so the client can be inspected. Both support bringing your own API key, but only Codex covers the offline, on-machine setup this use case needs.

For teams that want to read or fork the agent, the license is what matters most. OpenAI Codex publishes an Apache-2.0 license for the Codex CLI, while Cursor publishes no open source license. Codex also lists supported model providers including OpenAI and Azure OpenAI plus five more, runs local models, and its repository has 127,600 GitHub stars. Cursor publishes none of these.

Where the agent runs matters most for shell-first developers. Cursor lists a desktop IDE (VS Code fork), an Agents window and ten more surfaces, while OpenAI Codex's published surface is the ChatGPT desktop app. Beyond that the two are evenly matched: both run terminal commands, both offer background or cloud agents, both support MCP, and both read project rules files such as AGENTS.md. With the core capabilities level, Cursor's wider published set of surfaces gives it the edge.

OpenAI Codex works in VS Code, VS Code Insiders, Cursor and two more editors, while Cursor runs in its own editor, which is a VS Code fork desktop IDE. Both make autonomous multi-file edits. Cursor then pulls ahead on what keeps in-editor work safe: it publishes checkpoints and rollback plus codebase indexing, neither of which Codex lists. Codex publishes its entry usage as part of Plus ($20), a smaller point. For staying in a VS Code style editor with an easy undo, Cursor edges it.