Cursor vs Onlook (2026): Which Vibe Coding App Is Better?

Both are popular AI code editors. Here is how Cursor and Onlook stack up on price, strengths and weaknesses, and which one we would pick.

Cursor

The AI-first code editor with agents, background agents and fast autocomplete

9.0 /10

Pricing: Free plan, paid from $20/mo

Pros

Best-in-class autocomplete plus a capable agent
Familiar VS Code interface and extensions
Background agents in the cloud

Cons

Usage-based pricing on top of the plan can surprise heavy users
Referral programme discontinued

Visit Cursor ↗

Onlook

Open-source visual editor for styling and editing React + Tailwind apps with AI

6.5 /10

Pricing: Freemium

Pros

Lets designers and developers edit a live React/Tailwind app directly in the rendered DOM, with changes written back to real code instead of a design file
Open source (Apache-2.0) and self-hostable, with a hosted version available if you don't want to run it yourself
Built-in branching for trying design variants, brand/token management, and comment-based collaboration for teams

Cons

Scoped to Next.js + Tailwind projects; not a general-purpose visual editor for other stacks
The public README doesn't name specific coding-agent integrations (e.g. Cursor, Copilot) beyond its own AI chat and MCP support, so agent compatibility is narro

Visit Onlook ↗

Cursor vs Onlook at a glance

	Cursor	Onlook
Editor score	9.0 / 10	6.5 / 10
Pricing model	Freemium	Freemium
Starting price	$20/mo	Free
Reader upvotes	0	0
Best for	editor, ide	design-to-code, react, tailwindcss
Agent Skills support	Yes	No
Subagents support	Yes	No
MCP support	Yes	Yes
AGENTS.md support	Yes	No
Plugins support	Yes	No
Hooks support	Yes	No
Rules support	Yes	No
Agent skills in this directory	53	0
Subagents & agents in this directory	23	3
MCP servers in this directory	74	72

Our pick

Cursor edges it with a score of 9.0 versus 6.5. Cursor is the better fit if you value: best-in-class autocomplete plus a capable agent, familiar vs code interface and extensions. Choose Onlook instead if you need: lets designers and developers edit a live react/tailwind app directly in the rendered dom, with changes written back to real code instead of a design file, open source (apache-2.0) and self-hostable, with a hosted version available if you don't want to run it yourself.