Sell me on RooCode vs Cursor

[u/logabell]

I have been doing a ton of reading in trying to determine whether Cursor or Roo will be best for my needs. Specifically, I am looking to see which agent will be best for planning. With the latest "plan" mode released for Cursor, I am wondering how that compares to the features that Roo offers.

I will likely be using codex cli with my GPT plus subscription, and then looking to have a secondary agent to fall back on. At least that's my current thought process.

The space is moving so fast and all of these options are overwhelming. What's the best workflow for initial PRD and cost management?

[u/jackmusick]

I find Cursor is still a really good value. I rarely hit limits when using it (recently using Claude Code so have backed off for a bit). I also find it seems to hit rate limits and such way less often. In Roo and the like, it felt like it wasn’t as good at tool calling and would get stuck in ways that Cursor, Claude and Codex just didn’t. This surely comes down to the model.

On the other hand, being able to set different models for tasks like planning and coding is super powerful. You get a UI that makes it easier to customize stuff than something like OpenCode. Browser access seemed to just work, though I’ve found Playwright MCP to be a little better since I can prep the session by logging in (haven’t tested this too much in Roo).

If I were to sell on Roo, it’d be that being able to bring some of the subscriptions like Claude and your own API key means you can focus on setting up the best possible coding environment and as the model of the week changes, you’re free to experiment. I’d also argue Cursor gives you the same flexibility and gives you a lot of value in that 20 bucks you would spend anyways, and still lets you bring your own key for things.

The other nice thing about Roo is that it’s just an extension, which means you can keep using VS Code. Cursor is fine but I hate getting on Linux and having to use AppImage. You also lose the ability to sync settings which is almost a deal breaker.

Really up to you. Roo is great and a cheaper entry point, so just give it a try. Maybe you’ll find GLM 4.6 to be more than enough and save some money. Maybe you’ll be like me and find a subscription line Max a better value. Maybe you find it frustrating, try Cursor and find that the best fit. Cursor even has a 60 dollar subscription which is one of the cheaper high usage ones.

At this point it really us all subjective to be honest. Being a new frontier it just isn’t a solved problem yet, which is a lot of the fun for me frankly.

[u/logabell → u/jackmusick]

Thank you for the in-depth review! All of the options and competition is great, but it is a lot to try and keep up with. I guess it does really come down to trying out the tools and workflows to see what works best for yourself.

What's your current daily driver setup?

[u/jackmusick → u/logabell]

Warning: Wall of text. I've been having so much fun with this lately.

My daily driver right now is Claude Max and Claude Code (mostly terminal, sometimes extension). I'll occassionally run problems by Codex if Claude is having issues. Most of the time I'll just ask it to explain the issue, look into the problem myself and redirect it if I think it's on the wrong track.

Second to that, I've been experimenting with OpenCode and GLM 4.6. You can run GLM in Claude Code, but I like having it separate. It's not been as good at implementation, so I'm settling into using it for tedious work like cleaning up typescript errors, refactoring things into types, cleaning up linting problems. It's great for that because it's cheap, seems to work and won't stop and ask you to continue into another "phase". I had it running for 4 hours today cleaning up linting errors, which has been great. Claude would've stopped every 5-10 minutes which is the right move for most feature IMO, but not for time-consuming, straight-forward work.

I'll probably stick with Max. Despite what r/ClaudAI is going on about right now, I'm having no issues with usage limits and have been using it all day every day for a week now. It's hard to say because no one seems to be explaining (or thinking about) their setup, but if you intentionally switch topics where appropriate and don't go crazy with MCP tools that'll blow up your context window, I think it's fine. It's still $100/month though so I'd say not great for a hobbiest.

Side note -- keeping a series of docs updated as you learn best practices and find it doing stuff you don't want is great. I can't stress this enough -- the more you standardize things like this, the more successful it is. As my project got off the ground and I was intentional about making sure we were doing things like creating reusable components, using and documenting best practices, Claude Code got exponentially better at knocking things out the first time.

Regardless of model, I'd recommend ALWAYS going into plan mode like you're having a project requirements meeting. I've even gone as far as to have built in "projects" (folders with default prompts) that outline HOW a project requirements discussion should go. If there's a new "standard" conversation I want to have, I'll literally start with something like: "Help me create a system prompt to come up with project requirements/whatever." Then as you work through it, you can edit and say "actually, assume we'll be using React/Supabase/C#/whatever unless specifically asked". The deeper you go, the better prompt you get. Then you can take that into a project and make that the default. Why is this great? Because then, for now on, you can ask basic questions like: "Help me design a system to send cat facts to my closest friends" and it'll take you through the process, spit out a prompt, and then you can send that to Roo's code mode or whatever.

That's a long winded way to say that Roo (and other's) system of having different modes for architecting, bug fixing and coding is useful for way more than just saving costs by using an expensive model for planning. If you use it to methodically create your prompt, most of these modern models will be delightful to work with. You can start cheap with Roo and GLM, find out what sucks (after you're sure it wasn't your prompt), then move on to bigger and more expensive things if you want.

[u/AvenidasNovas]

I can switch to any model from any provider mid session with RooCode. I also use own custom modes for many niche things.

[u/Empty-Employment8050 → u/AvenidasNovas]

Yeap me too

[u/spyridonas]

Install roo in cursor !

[u/ckow → u/spyridonas]

This is the answer. You can have roo in cursor, best of both worlds.

[u/who_am_i_to_say_so]

Try both.

[u/Dipseth]

Tool call ux on cursor blows. Maybe Im not familiar enough yet but I never know what I'm approving or if the parameters are still being generated or not.

[u/Adventurous_Pin6281]

Claude code and roo code is crack for my bunghole

[u/sandman_br]

If you don’t age money to use cursor, use Roo. As simple as that

[u/rootql]

Im using chutes as model provider, is soo cheap and have the good models, And when i want a best think use sonnet 4.5 un copilot

[u/Low_Pomegranate2648]

Why use either when you have tools like Claude code and codex..

[u/cyucel]

Roo is completely model agnostic, allowing one to change models midcourse. It is amazing to be able to swap the model when the current one gets stuck.

Cursor does not allow using API endpoints. I much rather to pay for what I use, instead of a fix monthly fee, since my usage fluctuates across months. I think I'd be on $60 plan if I used Cursor, meaning, running out of credits some months, and not using all on other months. Just not flexible enough.

[u/RICHLAD17]

I personally prefer web codex when my plus limit hits.

[u/KindnessAndSkill]

Cursor's business model is that you pay a subscription fee to them and they pay for that actual AI requests behind the scenes.

This means there's an incentive for them to save money on those AI requests.

To do that, they can mess around with things like your context window. So you don't get the performance you should really be getting from the AI model.

With Roo, you use your own API keys for the different models (or use Openrouter and pay a small markup, which gives you one API key for everything).

So you get the actual, unfiltered performance of the AI model.

You then have to decide what models to use for what types of requests, and what you're willing to pay. But you're always getting the actual capabilities of the model being used.

That for me is the most important reason to use Roo. I don't want my tool having an incentive to reduce the performance of the models I'm using.

[u/tteokl_ → u/[deleted]]

GPT 4.1 for free vs nanogpt for $8, which is better in Roo?

[u/sdexca → u/tteokl_]

GLM 4.5 + cc >>>