Cursor vs OpenAI Codex

as AI assistants see them, week of 2026-09-14

brag about it: X · LinkedIn

Cursor comes out well ahead of OpenAI Codex here. Cursor scores 66 overall and shows up in 57 of 70 answers, while OpenAI Codex sits at 21 overall and appears in just 22 of 70. Head-to-head, Cursor was named more often in 17 questions versus 1 for OpenAI Codex, with 2 ties. Cursor was named in every answer for questions like "top AI coding assistants in 2026" and "best free AI coding assistants," but never came up for terminal-based use. OpenAI Codex did lead on "best AI coding assistant that works in the terminal," named in all 3 answers there, though it was never mentioned for privacy-focused or beginner-focused questions.

Head to head

metric	Cursor	OpenAI Codex
score	66	21
questions won	18	12

By assistant

Cursor

assistant	score	named in, this week	usual spot, this week
ChatGPT	71	90% of answers	#2.8
Claude	56	75% of answers	#3.2
Gemini	90	100% of answers	#1.7
Perplexity	61	70% of answers	#2.0

OpenAI Codex

assistant	score	named in, this week	usual spot, this week
ChatGPT	37	55% of answers	#4.2
Claude	30	45% of answers	#4.3
Gemini	0	0% of answers
Perplexity	8	10% of answers	#3.0

Where they differ

Only Cursor gets named for

What's the best AI coding assistant for Python?
What's the best AI tool for writing and fixing React and Next.js code?
What are the best free AI coding assistants?
What's the best AI coding assistant for VS Code?
What's the best AI coding assistant for beginners learning to code?
What's the best AI tool to review pull requests automatically?
What's the best open-source AI coding assistant?

Only OpenAI Codex gets named for

What's the best AI coding assistant that works in the terminal?

More comparisons

Not sold on either?

Scores count how often each assistant names a product, weighted by position. How the score works · Full AI coding assistants leaderboard