Bolt vs Cursor
At a glance
| Bolt | Cursor | |
|---|---|---|
| Pricing | Freemium | Freemium |
| Free plan | Yes | Yes |
| Starting price | $25/month | $8/month |
| Category | Development | Development |
| Best for | Founders prototyping and launching MVPs without a full dev team | Writing and refactoring code with an AI agent |
Prices come from each official site and can change. Check the official pricing pages before subscribing.
Key features
Bolt
- Build websites and web apps from natural-language prompts in the browser
- Built-in website hosting and unlimited databases
- Custom domains and no Bolt branding on Pro
- Unused paid tokens roll over for up to two months
- AI image editing and SEO boosting on Pro
- Teams plan with centralized billing, admin controls and private NPM registries
- Design system knowledge with per-package prompts for teams
Cursor
- AI code editor with an in-editor coding agent
- Chat about and edit your codebase
- Cloud agents and automations (Premium and higher)
- AI code reviews via Bugbot (Premium and higher)
- Code hosting via Origin (Premium and higher)
- Third-party models at API list price, plus included Grok usage
- Privacy mode that keeps code out of model training
Pros
Bolt
- Free plan includes hosting, databases and 1M tokens per month
- Runs in the browser with no local setup
- Paid tokens roll over for up to two months while subscribed
- Monthly and yearly billing, with up to 28% savings on yearly
Cursor
- Free tier with limited agent and chat requests
- Agent, chat, and code review in one editor
- Privacy mode guarantees code data is not used for training
- Usage allowance refreshes weekly instead of monthly
Cons
Bolt
- Token usage depends on project size and prompts, so costs can be hard to predict
- Free plan has a 300K daily token limit, Bolt branding and a 10MB upload limit
- Generated code still needs review and testing before production use
- Teams plan tokens are per member and not shared
Cursor
- The $8 Plus plan includes only Grok models
- Third-party models (non-Grok) are billed separately at API list price
- Cloud agents and code reviews require Premium ($30/month) or higher
- Plans are now bundled with X/Grok subscription features, which may not suit every user
Which one should you choose?
Choose Bolt if you need
- Founders prototyping and launching MVPs without a full dev team
- Designers and product managers turning ideas into working prototypes
- Developers scaffolding full-stack apps quickly
- Small businesses building landing pages and simple sites with hosting
Choose Cursor if you need
- Writing and refactoring code with an AI agent
- Asking questions about an unfamiliar codebase
- Running background coding tasks with cloud agents
- Automated AI review of pull requests
Bolt vs Cursor: FAQ
Is Bolt better than Cursor?
Neither is better for everyone. Bolt: Build and scale high-performing websites & apps using your words. Join millions and start building today. Cursor: Cursor is an AI-powered code editor designed to enhance developer productivity through autonomous agents, codebase indexing, and advanced autocomplete. Pick Bolt for founders prototyping and launching MVPs without a full dev team, and Cursor for writing and refactoring code with an AI agent.
Which is cheaper, Bolt or Cursor?
Cursor's paid plans start at $8/month, compared with $25/month for Bolt, based on each official pricing page at the last update. Limits differ between plans, so compare what each tier includes.
Do Bolt and Cursor have free plans?
Yes, both offer free access with usage limits. Paid plans raise those limits and add features.