Best AI Models for Cursor
Cursor is an AI-native code editor built on VS Code. It uses AI models for code generation, editing, and chat. Models need strong code generation, reliable instruction-following, and fast response times for interactive editing.
What Matters for Cursor
Best Models for Cursor
Top 15 by tool-optimized score
All Models Ranked for Cursor (378 models)
Scored by: benchmark performance (90%) from MMLU, GPQA, HumanEval, SWE-bench, and 15+ standardized evaluations, with capabilities and context as tiebreakers (10%).
More Tool Rankings
Based on our analysis of coding benchmarks, capability matching, and pricing, Qwen3.8 Max currently ranks #1 for Cursor. Rankings are rebuilt as benchmark, pricing, and provider data refresh.
We score models using benchmark performance (90%) from LMArena, HumanEval, SWE-bench, MMLU, and 15+ standardized evaluations. Capabilities and context serve as tiebreakers (10%). Only models with the capabilities Cursor needs are included in the tool-specific rankings.
We currently track 378 AI models compatible with Cursor. This includes models from OpenAI, Anthropic, Google, DeepSeek, and other providers accessible via API.
Many open-source models are compatible with Cursor through API providers like OpenRouter, Together AI, and Groq. Check our rankings to see which open-source models perform best.
Rankings refresh whenever the underlying benchmark, pricing, and catalog sources refresh. That means some signals update faster than others, and the page reflects the latest verified source data available.