CursorvsKiro
Generated from the two spec rows. Green marks the better value where a spec has a clear direction. Everything else is just different.
Cursor
Anysphere · AI-native IDE
#12MCP
Panel
6.82 spec wins
- Reliability
- 7.0
- Usefulness
- 7.7
- Cost
- 5.5
- Longevity
- 6.8
“Twenty dollars a month, then 3x, then 20x, and the page never says 20x of what.”
Kiro
Amazon Web Services · AI-native IDE
#57MCP
Panel
6.50 spec wins
- Reliability
- 6.3
- Usefulness
- 6.7
- Cost
- 5.7
- Longevity
- 7.3
“Makes you write requirements, design and tasks before any code, so the credit meter starts running before the first line does.”
Spec by spec
| Spec | Cursor | Kiro |
|---|---|---|
| Architecture | ||
| Category | AI-native IDE | AI-native IDE |
| Runs | local, cloud | local, cloud, sandbox |
| Platforms | macos, linux, windows | macos, linux, windows, web |
| Context window | 200k default, up to 1M tokens on select models | not documented |
| Protocols | ||
| MCP client | Yes | Yes |
| MCP server | No | No |
| Capabilities | ||
| Runs terminal commands | Yes | Yes |
| Multi-file edits | Yes | Yes |
| Git operations | Yes | Yes |
| Browser control | Yes | YesEvery Kiro Web sandbox ships a headless Chrome with Playwright MCP, the agent-browser CLI and the Chrome DevTools MCP server preinstalled; the local IDE and CLI have no built-in browser tool. |
| Sandboxed execution | Yes | YesKiro Web runs each task in its own isolated execution environment with configurable access controls. |
| Multi-agent orchestration | Yes | Yes |
| Headless / CI mode | Yes | Yes |
| Models | ||
| Backbone | Claude, GPT, Gemini, Grok, Composer, Kimi, GLM | Claude, GPT, DeepSeek, Qwen, MiniMax, GLM |
| Bring your own model | YesYour own keys reach the vendors' own models (OpenAI, Anthropic, Google) plus your own Azure OpenAI deployment or AWS Bedrock account; Tab completion always stays on Cursor's models. | NoKiro exposes a picker over its own curated model list plus an Auto router; no custom base URL, Bedrock deployment or self-hosted endpoint is documented. |
| Local models | NoCustom API keys are limited to OpenAI, Anthropic, Google, Azure OpenAI and AWS Bedrock, with no documented base URL override, so Ollama, LM Studio or a self-hosted endpoint cannot be pointed at. | NoNo local or OpenAI-compatible endpoint is documented; only Kiro-hosted models are selectable. |
| Cost | ||
| Pricing model | mixed | mixed |
| Starts at | $20/mo | $20/mo |
| Free tier | Yes | Yes |
| Bring your own key | Yes | NoKIRO_API_KEY for headless runs is a Kiro platform token billed against Kiro credits, not your own provider or AWS account key. |
| Openness | ||
| Open source | No | No |
| License | proprietary | proprietary |
| GitHub stars | n/a | 4,343 |
Which one would each critic pick
| Critic | Cursor | Kiro | Pick |
|---|---|---|---|
| El Juez | — | — | not enough reviews |
| El Amigo | 7.8 | 7.3 | Cursor — The best editor experience today, with a subscription that turns into a meter the moment you push the agent hard. |
| El Crítico | 6.5 | 6.3 | Cursor — The sandbox is a property of the run mode you pick, and Run Everything drops it, while the pricing page turns limits into a ladder of tiers to climb. |
| El Profesor | 6.0 | 6.5 | Kiro — Kiro's spec-first pipeline is a principled ordering, requirements before design before tasks before code, but no benchmark and no published evaluation accompanies it. |
| La Inversora | 8.3 | 7.8 | Cursor — Real revenue, real pricing power, an in-house model, and a dependency on the labs it competes with for every frontier request. |
| La Jefa | 7.5 | 7.0 | Cursor — Teams at $40 per user with SSO, but SCIM, audit logs and auto-run controls sit behind a custom Enterprise quote. |
| El Hacker | 4.5 | 4.3 | Cursor — A closed fork of an open editor with a good MCP client; I can add keys and servers, but I cannot read it or run it offline. |
Picks are derived from each critic's own scores. Humans vote on matchups on the duels page.