Cursor vs Codex vs Claude vs Zed vs Anti-Gravity (I Tested Them All)

I spend way too much time playing around with all the different AI code editors and agentic coding solutions out there.

And in this video, I'm going to be going through some of the biggest players in this space with some incumbents as well as some new players in the space. Give a

little review on every single one of them, how they compare to each other, and then at the very end of the video, I'm going to give a couple of recommendations on what you should use.

So, the code editors and AI coding solutions I'm going to compare today is going to be anti-gravity versus cursor versus zed versus cloud code versus open AAI codeex. Buckle in. This is going to

AAI codeex. Buckle in. This is going to be a long one. Let's get into it. Okay,

first let's talk about Zed. There's

actually so much lore and story behind Zed, and I know I'm going to butcher the details and get a lot of details wrong, but I believe from a highle point of view, essentially the creators of Zed were the original creators of a lot of

the really popular previous text editors like VS Code or Atom from back in the day now. And they realized that by

day now. And they realized that by building Atom and VS Code on Electron created a lot of performance issues and a kind of slow and clunky editor. So

then they went out to create zed to be a really blazing fast editor. I believe

it's based off of Rust. So really fast, really high performance. And I have to say Zed really delivers on that.

Whenever I run multiple instances of Zed to run multiple projects with like parallel work trees and parallel agents, rarely does my laptop begin overheating when I use zed. But I cannot say the same for that whenever I use a VS

codebased editor like cursor or anti-gravity or even VS code itself when I have multiple VS code windows and my laptop sounds like it is about to explode. Zed, I do not run into that

explode. Zed, I do not run into that issue. So my overall take on Zed and

issue. So my overall take on Zed and that's something that I really do enjoy about Zed. It seems to be a really

about Zed. It seems to be a really performant editor and I think that is the main selling point of Zed. Super

fast, really quick, really snappy. I

love it. They also have a lot of really interesting collaboration features which admittedly I don't use because I'm primarily a solo developer. Essentially,

Zed has literal like almost Slackesque communication built into it where you have channels and you can like call and literally conduct meetings. And I

believe there's also live like pair programming support directly built into Zed, which admittedly I don't really use just because I'm a solo developer. I

don't really have a team to lean on.

Well, you can see it right here in this tab in the collab panel. Unfortunately,

once again, I can't demo it, but it does seem like when you have your entire team, you can communicate, make sure nothing gets lost, and literally live inside of Zed to power your entire team for collaboration and communication. So,

that's one of the big features that I believe Zed originally launched with, but now in the whole AI age that's been coming out about, they've been leaning into the whole AI ecosystem a lot more with creating their own agentic system

right here. And then one thing that Zed

right here. And then one thing that Zed created, which I really do like, is this thing called agent client protocol. It's

basically similar to MCP but specifically designed for agents. What's

nice about this protocol is that you can essentially you know sign in with Gemini CLI, Codeex CLI, Cloud Code CLI and then with this protocol it creates basically a kind of a standard way of agents

communicating with code and going through workflows within any other tool in the future. Very similar to how MCP where when you really think about it is just like opening up a standard for AI and LLMs to communicate with API

endpoints. I think what the ACP the

endpoints. I think what the ACP the Asian client protocol doing is very similar to MCP but specifically for agentic coding work so that you can try to unify all of these coding agents under one common standard. Now how

commonly is this adopted? I'm not really too sure and I'm not going to give an opinion on that because I'm like honestly not qualified to do so. What I

will talk about is the AI coding experience specifically within Zed. Now,

what I do like about it is the fact that you can sign in with cloud code, codec CLI, Gemini CLI, or I believe you can also add more agents through open router or any of these other models as well.

Very nice. You get model choices and that's great. But at this point, that's

that's great. But at this point, that's kind of table stakes for any type of AI code editor out there in 2026. And

unfortunately, I just don't think Zed has enough AI coding features to really push me over. they have AI tab to complete as we've all grown accustomed to. But specifically with their agentic

to. But specifically with their agentic coding solution, for example, right now they don't have the ability to have multiple threads going at once. So for

example, let's say I say like update the client.ts with better logging. Great. This works

using the agent client protocol. But

then if I want to do another parallel workstream, I can't. It closes out the previous workflow and it's opening up a new one, completely erasing the previous instance. And right now in 2026, the

instance. And right now in 2026, the meta for AI coding and programming in general is definitely moving towards parallel work streams where you can work on multiple things at once. And that

quite frankly just is not really supported directly within here zed. Now

obviously there are workarounds to this.

You can start off one task here. Then

you can open up a CLI tool like cloud code or Gemini CLI codec and then you can let it start going from here as well and that's fine. So there are workarounds and you still get a faster solution to it. But at the same time I

feel like it shouldn't be this way in 2026. I think Zed's biggest value

2026. I think Zed's biggest value proposition is the fact that it's fast.

That is it. Biggest value proposition is still definitely not in the whole AI coding realm. I think its AI features

coding realm. I think its AI features are always going to be lagging behind the bleeding edge editors like cursor or even anti-gravity as well. And then this is another thing as well because zed is kind of built from scratch and it's not

based off of a VS code fork like cursor or anti-gravity. Sometimes the feature

or anti-gravity. Sometimes the feature parody isn't just always there. Let me

show you one very small example of this.

So let's say I am going to take a screenshot of this web page. I really

like this, right? And I want to make a change to this. In a VS codebase editor, I can take this image, drop it in here, and then it would normally populate cloud code. I'll even show you right

cloud code. I'll even show you right here. Let's take another screenshot

here. Let's take another screenshot right here of this random screenshot.

Maybe if it was real code of a real app, I can get it to edit it some way. And

I'm going to drop it into my terminal, the cloud code. It shows up right there.

It registers from the temp directory and gets this image. But then if I try to do the same exact workflow within zed, take the screenshot, drop it in to cloud code, nothing. Nothing gets inserted.

code, nothing. Nothing gets inserted.

Now once again there are workarounds where I can get this image, save it to my desktop and then from there I can go to my desktop, get that screenshot and then from there I can paste it in. But

once again that's a workaround that I just feel like shouldn't be there. And I

think that's the biggest downside with zed because zed is not based off of a VS code fork like anti-gravity or cursor or VS code itself and it has to build everything from scratch. The Zed team is

then forced to actually take all the really popular coding tools which treat VS Code as a first class citizen. they

have to rebuild that feature themselves.

Another example is a claude code for VS code plug-in exists and then that lets you run cloud code in a nice graphical interface directly within your VS codebased code editor like for example with here within cursor and then I can

open up anti-gravity and once again have the same exact extension support immediately out of the box because they are both based out of the VS code fork.

Zed doesn't have that. That's why they had to create their own AI coding interface here with their agent client protocol and they can only do one thread at a time. You can work on multiple work streams at once natively within Zed. So

my overall opinion on Zed is I like it.

I wanted to like it more because I do really appreciate how fast and how snappy it is. But because it's not part of the quote unquote industry standard right now of the most popular AI code editors, which are VS Code forks, it's

always lagging behind in features and it's always playing catch-up and you never feel like you're on the bleeding edge, which for some people is not important, but that is something you need to know. And with any of these AI code editors, one of the most important parts about using these tools is to get

context into your app and write your prompts out as fast as you can. And for

Cursor and other VS Codebased code editors, there's actually support to tag files using a speechtoext tool. For

example, right here, you can say update the personal content.ts file.

And you can see the file is automatically tagged just by speaking out the prompt. I'm a huge advocate of using speechto text tools in your AI coding workflow because typing long prompts is so slow and timeconuming. And

because of this, I find myself kind of cutting corners and leaving out important context compared to if I were talking about this feature with a co-worker, for example. And that's where Whisper Flow comes in as a really great tool for developers because it

understands developer terminology, formats variables correctly, and even lets you tag files automatically inside Cursor and other VS Code editors just like I showed you. And being able to speak your prompts and tag files significantly speeds up your developer

workflow. They also have a brand new

workflow. They also have a brand new style feature which is a contextaware speechtoext tool that can automatically format your messages to look more conversational in certain apps and more formal in other apps. For example, in

iMessage I can say, "Hey, what's up? Do

you want to get coffee tomorrow?"

And you can see it's not capitalized.

It's way more casual, much more conversational. But then if I were to

conversational. But then if I were to say the same exact message in an email, I could say, "Hey, what's up? Do you

want to get coffee for tomorrow?" Much

more proper grammar. Everything's

capitalized. Same sentence, just different context. And while they are

different context. And while they are the sponsor of today's video, you can see that I use them a lot and I've actually transcribed over 60,000 words myself using Whisper Flow. And they also have this really useful tool called snippets where you can create like

shorthands for phrases to map to certain outputs. So for example, I if I just say

outputs. So for example, I if I just say my email address, instead of pasting my email address, it'll paste in my actual email address. You can reach out to me

email address. You can reach out to me at my email address right there. Just say it once and flow

right there. Just say it once and flow drops in the fully formatted final version. I'll include a link in the

version. I'll include a link in the description of this video if you want to try it out yourself and you can use code YATB for an extra free month of Flow Pro. Highly recommend them. They're an

Pro. Highly recommend them. They're an

awesome tool and I use them all the time. And once again, thanks to the

time. And once again, thanks to the WhisperFlow team for sponsoring this portion of the video. All right, next up, let's talk about Cursor. I don't

think Cursor needs any introduction because it is the de facto probably most popular AI coding ID coding tool out there. It was the first one that came

there. It was the first one that came out and it is incredibly popular. And if

you watch my recent video where I talk about my AI coding workflow in 2026, you will see that cursor is the main editor that I use. So cursor, it is super familiar to most people because it's VS Codebased. So it's a very familiar UI if

Codebased. So it's a very familiar UI if you grew up using VS Code. But then

obviously the claim to fame is the fact that it has your whole AI coding chat panel over here. You have all the different models that you can use.

Composer 1 is the in-house model that they built themselves. Opus, Sonnet,

GPT, Gemini, everything. You get all the models you want directly there. And they

have a really great like tab to complete code prediction system which is like you see right there. These are just table stakes things that we've just gotten used to as the standard for AI coding tools. And a lot of the standard was

tools. And a lot of the standard was probably created by cursor because they were the first and biggest competitors out there. Now obviously they have a lot

out there. Now obviously they have a lot of other features that they've added into cursor as well. For example, you can open up a browser. So when you start a local dev server, for example, you can open it up directly within your browser

tab. And what makes that particularly

tab. And what makes that particularly interesting is that when you go over here, you can start making changes. You

can highlight things. It gets referenced in the chat. You can tell it update this text to see to say hello world. You

know, makes all these changes for you.

Has a really nice ecosystem. They also

have a lot of other tooling that they have built out as well such as agent review which is a tool that goes out and when you make changes, it'll go out and try to find any potential bugs that your code is making like a little code review

tool. They also have other tools like

tool. They also have other tools like bugbot, cursor CLI, cursor cloud where you can make changes directly within a cloud hosted instance on your of your project by cursor. They also have this new UI mode called the agent mode where

it is an agent first UI where you can have multiple parallel workst strings going on at once. Now the biggest pros about cursor is the fact that it is kind of the industry standard tool out there and for any other AI plugin or AI coding

tool out there whether that be an MCP or anything else. Cursor is pretty much

anything else. Cursor is pretty much always guaranteed to have first class instructions because it's going to be treated as a first class citizen in the AI coding world. That's the biggest pro for it. Another pro is the fact that

for it. Another pro is the fact that cursor is kind of always going to be on the bleeding edge. They come out with newest features all the time and right now I don't see any AI coding editor, specifically an editor that ships faster

than cursor. And if you are also someone

than cursor. And if you are also someone that's on a little bit more of a budget, then I do think cursor is great because you do get the model picker where you get access to so many different models for one price within one piece of software. But that is also going to lead

software. But that is also going to lead into some of the biggest cons about cursor. And the biggest con about cursor

cursor. And the biggest con about cursor is the fact that honestly it's going to get pretty expensive. While they do have their own in-house model with composer 1, they are also this middleman layer for access and usage to Opus, Sonnet,

GPT, Gemini, whatever other models that are out there. And I personally believe if there is one particular model you like the most, you are much better off getting subscription straight from that party provider because you will get more

access and usage directly from them than you would with cursor. For example, if you are a big Opus and anthropic fan in general, you're better off getting a cloud code subscription. If you're a big OpenAI and GPT fan, you're better off

getting a codec subscription. So on and so forth. But if you're someone that's

so forth. But if you're someone that's not super particular about which model you want to use and just using one model specifically and you want to use a bunch of different models, cursor is a pretty good solution to that. And also their composer one model, I actually really do like it. I think it's a good model. The

like it. I think it's a good model. The

biggest difference with Composer 1 versus the other models is that Composer is a much faster model compared to the other GPT 5.2, to sonnet opus models and it sacrifices a little bit of raw intelligence and coding power but it

makes up for that with faster token output and faster code changes so you can stay in a little bit more of a flow state but that's a general highle overview of cursor and while I'm going to transition now to talking about anti-gravity we're definitely going to

come back to talk more about cursor as well because we're not quite done yet and we're always going to use it as a comparison point too. All right, next up let's talk about anti-gravity.

Anti-gravity. Anti-gravity. Boy, do a lot of thoughts about this one because there's a lot I like a lot that I don't like. Let's talk about it. Now, before

like. Let's talk about it. Now, before

getting into it, for those of you that don't know the kind of controversial history of anti-gravity. So,

anti-gravity is an AI coding editor to compete with the likes of Cursor that is built by Google. But Google actually acquired the founders and a really small core team of the original team behind Windsurf. Probably the second place AI

Windsurf. Probably the second place AI coding editor compared to Curser a year or two ago and probably today too. So

while windsurf still exists essentially Google hired of a founding team like a 20 30 people and only took those 20 to 30 people took them over to Google created anti-gravity which is basically

a fork of windsurf which windsurf is a fork of VS code so it's a fork of a fork and there's a lot of controversy about this and you should read up on that it's a pretty interesting story but let's talk more about the code editor itself

with anti-gravity so anti-gravity like I said it's a VS code fork so it's very familiar environment that we are all used to and honestly when you open it up it looks more VS codeesque and cursor.

Cursor has definitely tweaked the UI a little bit more compared to anti-gravity because anti-gravity looks more like a pure VS Code that we are very much so used to. So once again, they have all

used to. So once again, they have all the table stake tools that you need in any AI code editor in 2026. They have

the tab to complete auto prediction right there, right? Bang did that. They

have the chat panel over here. They have

a model picker over here. Choose any

type of different model that you want.

Really great. But the thing I particularly like about anti-gravity, which I find the most interesting, is its agentic coding inbox. Like this

agent manager panel that we're looking at right here. Essentially, you can just create a bunch of different workspaces here. So, for example, this is a project

here. So, for example, this is a project that I'm working on of another small tool I've been cooking up on the side.

And this is the main product that I'm working on, Yorby, which you know, I I'll plug it right now. Give me a little I'll give one plug per video as one of the founders and creators. You know,

Yori, it is a social media marketing tool designed to help you find content inspiration to market your business on social media as well as create content to market your business on social media way faster. The way that we do that is

way faster. The way that we do that is we have two primary features we wanted to shout out. Number one is this viral content database. This is a database of

content database. This is a database of viral content that other businesses, specifically businesses have used to market their business on social media for you to get some info on what content to make to market your business on social media. And then let's say you

social media. And then let's say you find a piece of content that you find interesting. Then open up that piece of

interesting. Then open up that piece of content in our content studio. Then you

can remix this piece of content to fit your brand, your niche, whatever you want, while still maintaining that same original format of the video. So, for

example, in this conversation, you can see that I asked Yori to recreate this video for a fictional dating app called Wingmates, printed out an entire script specifically catered to the app that I

provided here, but it still maintains the same viral format and viral spirit of this original video right here. We're

essentially trying to make the cursor for marketing. Enough of the plug. Let's

for marketing. Enough of the plug. Let's

get back to the anti-gravity review. And

you can see that I have two different instances of Yori. And I just have this because these are basically GitHub work trees of one another so that I can work on multiple tasks within Yori in complete isolation so that the changes

don't overlap with one another. So from

within each of these workspace, you can kick off some type of agent decoding task like I did right here refactoring a transcription API. Then you chat with it

transcription API. Then you chat with it all here and you can basically manage every single one of your agents that's making changes in these code in the code. Then when you want to focus in and

code. Then when you want to focus in and see the actual code changes yourself, you have two options to do so. Number

one, you can click on review changes.

Just review the changes over here in this little lightweight code editor, text reviewing tool. Or if you press command E, you will then actually get transported into the full-blown editor experience of that repository of that

specific workspace. I really love this

specific workspace. I really love this UI. It's actually very similar to how

UI. It's actually very similar to how Codeex does their whole UI as well. You

know, with the whole workspace here, you have very siloed projects here and there. And then from there you can open

there. And then from there you can open up one of these threads, one of these work streams directly within your editor of choice like cursor right here. But

what's nice about anti-gravity is the fact that they had this directly built into the editor. And that is the best thing about anti-gravity. The fact that it's I think the best parallel workstream experience out there. As

you're working on different projects, you're like, "Okay, this is making some changes. Let me view the changes." It

changes. Let me view the changes." It

opens up a completely separate window.

Then let's say I go to Yori schema 2.

Press command E again. I open up its own completely separate window. really

really great for that workflow specifically just quickly switching through all the different projects and making changes there. And because

anti-gravity is owned by Google, Google definitely treats Gemini as their first class experience, their first class model, the first class citizens directly within anti-gravity. They have really

within anti-gravity. They have really cool things as well where anti-gravity automatically connects to Google Chrome where it can open up Google Chrome on its own and go browse around and interact with the page. And once again, because it's tied with Google, you can

also generate images with Nano Banana and then use these images as background images in your app or icons in general in your app as well. So, it has that really tight Google integration, which is great. But the question then becomes,

is great. But the question then becomes, is that enough to actually convince you to use anti-gravity? And in my personal experience, I think when you're choosing any type of AI coding solution out there, the biggest benefit of choosing

one AI coding solution over the other is the most amount of usage for that provider's models. For example, since

provider's models. For example, since anti-gravity is owned by Google, what you are really paying for is the maximum amount of usage for the Gemini family of models, Gemini 3 Flash or Gemini 3 Pro.

Yes, you still get access to Claude, Sonnet, Opus, GPT, any type of model within their model picker, and you still get access to it, but in my opinion, what you're really paying for is the maximum usage for the Gemini models for

Google's offering. Similarly to when

Google's offering. Similarly to when you're buying codecs because you don't have a model picker, you're straight up just purchasing this for the maximum amount of GPT usage compared to any other provider with claude code as well.

You are purchasing cla code for the maximum usage for cloud code models cla or opus. And if I'm being honest, I have

or opus. And if I'm being honest, I have really tried to like Gemini for coding.

I actually think Gemini is really good for UI design and creativity in that front, but man, for coding, Gemini, I just don't think it's that good, especially when GPT 5.3 and Opus 4.6 six just came out. Gemini just pales in

comparison. I really tried to use Gemini

comparison. I really tried to use Gemini exclusively within anti-gravity to make code changes and it just felt like it would get so lost. It would take so much longer to complete certain tasks and it was really frustrating. But whenever I

do make any type of UI changes, like front-end changes to make things look better, more intuitive, more natural. I

still default to using Gemini because I think that's where Gemini shine, UI design. But in terms of more complex

design. But in terms of more complex coding work, I have had a bit of a subpar experience compared to GPT 5.3 as well as Opus 4.6. But I want to make one more point about the multiworkspace tool

here. So like I said, I really love

here. So like I said, I really love anti-gravity's implementation of this multi-workspace workflow to have multiple parallel AI agents going on at once. Now does cursor have that? Kind of

once. Now does cursor have that? Kind of

yes, but kind of no. Because within

cursor, you actually can open up multiple workspaces as well. If you go over here to file, you can do add folder to workspace and then you can then import various other project that you

want. So this is the Yorb schema 2

want. So this is the Yorb schema 2 project. I could import Yori schema 1 as

project. I could import Yori schema 1 as well. I can also then import Let's

well. I can also then import Let's create the same setup as anti-gravity.

Let's import the Monty directory as well, right? And now that I have all

well, right? And now that I have all three of these separate different workplaces directly within cursor, technically, yes, I could go out and make changes using the code editor of cursor. And then now that I have all

cursor. And then now that I have all three of these workspaces loaded, I could then theoretically make a coding changes to any of these workspaces and directories that I imported. But the

thing is technically you still run the risk. But the thing is when I go to make

risk. But the thing is when I go to make code changes directly within the chat panel within cursor for these multiple workspaces, the agent is not siloed to just modifying Monty files or just modifying Yorbi schema 1 or Yorbi schema

2 files. There are no guard rails in

2 files. There are no guard rails in place to prevent it from making code changes to other open workspaces in here as well. So even if I tell it to make

as well. So even if I tell it to make changes only in like the Monty directory here, it can theoretically still have access to the Yorbi schema 1 and Yorbi schema 2. Now, chances of that happening

schema 2. Now, chances of that happening are probably pretty slim if you're working on completely separate projects like Monty versus Yorby. But if I'm telling the code editor to then make changes across my Yorbby project because

there's Yorbi in both the schema 1 and schema 2 directory, they could overwrite changes across both projects and that is a little scary to think about.

Obviously, not the worst thing in the world. All the changes are undoable. So,

world. All the changes are undoable. So,

yes, there is still multi-workspace support directly within cursor, but anti-gravity does it better. So, that is anti-gravity kind of in a nutshell.

really great UI in my opinion, but what you're paying for once again is the best maximum usage of Gemini model. And if

I'm being honest, if I had to choose between anti-gravity versus cursor or like a composer 1 model directly from cursor, I honestly might just choose a composer 1 model over the Gemini models because then if I actually wanted to do

some any UI design work, I could still just use Gemini 3 Pro here. Less use

compared to if I used it with an anti-gravity, but I still get access to it with cursor. All right, now let's talk about Codeex. Now, Codex just came out a couple of days ago, and it has been getting glazed like crazy. People

are like, "Holy [ __ ] this is the future of coding, software engineering, and I don't disagree with it, but I also don't like want to circle jerk it too hard.

Like, it's good, but let me let me let me explain. So, obviously app is pretty

me explain. So, obviously app is pretty [ __ ] sexy." Like I said earlier, comparing it to anti-gravity, you get all the different workspaces. You can

kick off different threads within here.

And what's nice is you from here, you can actually do it within a local project. So make code changes to your

project. So make code changes to your local repository or you can do it in a completely separate work tree have its own isolated code changes dedicated in that specific work tree or you can also just push it up to the codeex cloud

within OpenAI and let all the code changes happen there. They also have some really nice UI things as well such as if you go over here we can look at the changes and directly from here. Oh,

if this was an actual real code change you can quickly commit it push it create a PR. It has support to opening up that

a PR. It has support to opening up that code change that you have directly on any type of editor that you have. Really

great support there as well. And the UI is just really gorgeous. It's so pretty.

Honestly, shout out to the opens team.

You guys really cooked with the UI UX component of Codeex. Obviously, there's

a lot of really sweaty stuff that you can do as well, like installing new skills. They also have support for MCPs

skills. They also have support for MCPs as well, and that's all nice. But what I will say, like I said before in all the previous code reviews that I have done for all the editors out there, the

number one thing you are paying for with codecs is the best and maximum usage of GPT 5.2, GPT 5.3 for that particular price point. Yes, the UI is good. Don't

price point. Yes, the UI is good. Don't

get me wrong, I do agree with that take, but once again, it's actually not all that dissimilar from anti-gravity's Asian manager. It's really the same. You

Asian manager. It's really the same. You

have these separate workspaces where you can make siloed changes directly within here. Then when you want, you can then

here. Then when you want, you can then go deeper in to look at the changes manually in a full-blown text editor.

And Codeex pretty much does the same thing. You can make the changes here

thing. You can make the changes here locally. Then you can open up the code

locally. Then you can open up the code editor to view the code changes in its own dedicated editor instance. Very

similar it workflow as anti-gravity. Now

yes, Codeex does have a couple of benefits as well such as the fact that you can uh make the changes directly within the cloud and not be isolated only to your local environment. Like

anti-gravity for example, you can only make changes to your local environment.

And I really think the biggest benefit, the biggest upside from codeex is the fact that the GPT models are really, really [ __ ] good. I was kind of just drinking the clawed anthropic Kool-Aid

for the past year and a half or so. I

was like, GPT is trash, bro. Sucks at

coding. And I do think OpenAI coding models like legitimately were trash for a long time, but nowadays they're quite good. I've been really impressed with

good. I've been really impressed with 5.3 codecs. And if anything, I might

5.3 codecs. And if anything, I might even argue that it's better than cloud code models. like I've gotten really

code models. like I've gotten really good results, better results from using GPT 5.3 Codeex over an Opus 4.6 as of late. Obviously, model performance

late. Obviously, model performance changes all the time. New models come out all the time, but at least at the time of recording this video, 5.3 Codex has really impressed me with the work that it can do. And I'm going to talk a little bit more about this at the end of

the video for some recommendations that I have in my opinion, like non-expert opinion, just random dude on the internet's opinion for what the best coding setup is. But for a little bit of a preview of that, I think the best

solution you're going to find is getting some type of picking one of the coding editors, whether that be zed or cursor or anti-gravity. Honestly, I'd probably

or anti-gravity. Honestly, I'd probably pick anti-gravity or cursor, not so much zed, and then pairing that with a model provider solution like a codeex or a cloud code because once again, the UI is good, don't get me wrong. Really well

built, but the real game changer, the real thing that you're paying for here is just the most amount of GPT 5.3 usage out of any other piece of software out there for that particular price point.

And now kind of on that note, let's switch over to Claude Code. All right,

so now let's talk about Claude Code. Now

Claude Code, I feel like it's kind of in the same realm as cursor as being one of the more de facto industry standard tools out there. It's super super popular, but Claude Code is essentially very similar to OpenAI codeex, but

inside with OpenAI codeex models, you get access to anthropic cloud models with Sonnet and Opus and Haiku. I

primarily use cloud code directly within my code editor, whether that be just in the terminal within using the cloud code CLI tool or using the VS code extension within anti-gravity or cursor. And once

again with cloud code, what you're paying for is getting the maximum amount of anthropic model usage. Sonnet or Opus right now opus 4.6 the brand new model that came out. So you're really paying for the most enthropic model usage out

of any other tool that you can get for that particular price point. And cloud

code has really evolved a lot as well because now within the cloud code extension you can actually use the cloud code chrome extension to open up a tab.

So you can actually use claude codes chrome extension with pairing with cloud code extension within VS code to let the cloud code instance here have full access to the actual web app that you're

working on right here. So you can see right here this is indicating that claude actually has control over this entire page. So this is really useful

entire page. So this is really useful when I'm trying to debug a certain scenario or run test cases. you can tell cloud code blah blah blah make some changes test these changes with this specific user flow on this browser instance and see what the flow is like

and see any UX or UI improvements that you can find that's kind of one workflow that I particularly have been using it on so this has been really great so cloud code once again it's kind of the king of AI agent coding tools out there

using it in the CLI or using it as a VS code extension but I think another feature that a lot of people kind of forgot and don't talk about is the fact that you can run cloud code in the cloud as well directly from within the cloud app you know like the default is set to

make these changes in a cloud environment. I particularly use this

environment. I particularly use this when I'm just doing kind of smaller changes, like less technically complex changes, like for example, just changing a constant variable from URL 1 to URL 2.

Just adding really simple changes. I I

trust the cloud environment and then I can just review the code changes within GitHub. I rarely, for some reason, don't

GitHub. I rarely, for some reason, don't use cloud code from the cloud app itself to make any local changes. And the

reason for that is probably because I just prefer doing that within cloud code here instead. Oh, I guess one thing I

here instead. Oh, I guess one thing I didn't mention about the Codeex app is the fact that with Codex, you can also download a Codeex CLI tool similar to how there's a Cloud Code CLI tool and you can just run Codeex directly within

here within your text editor of choice.

But going back to Claude, I do think Claude Code is still very very good. I

have actually been more impressed, like I mentioned earlier, more impressed with the GPT 5.3 Codex model than I have with Opus 4.6. I do find 5.3 Codex to be a

Opus 4.6. I do find 5.3 Codex to be a slower model compared to Opus 4.6, but it just performs a lot better. It's like

way more detail oriented. It applies

more scrutiny to the changes that it makes compared to an Opus 4.6. And cloud

code similar to codecs also have work tree support as well. So you can make dedicated changes in its own GitHub work tree so that it isolates all the changes into that work tree and it doesn't muddy any of the code changes that you're

making throughout your application. Once

again, Codeex and Cloud Code are basically the same tool. The only

difference is the UI of the application, which I will personally say I think Codeex does have a better UI as well as the strength of the model, which once again right now I'm going to say Codeex is a better model for me and my workflow compared to Opus 4.6. It varies on

everybody's experience. So you should

everybody's experience. So you should definitely test out both models and see which one you like. For me right now, I'm more swayed with Codeex's UI as well as their actual models as well. So that

is a quick overview of like all the code models and coding tools out there. Now,

let's step back and actually do a deeper dive into what my recommendations are for the general people of what tools to use and purchase. Okay, now that I have kind of gone over all of the AI coding tools, let's talk about some

recommendations and what tools are best for certain types of people. And once

again, I want to be very clear. I'm

literally not an expert. I'm a random dude on the internet that codes a lot and makes videos on the internet. Don't

trust my word as like the law of the lane. And this is just like a general

lane. And this is just like a general recommendation from a random from like a friend or something. So, don't take it too seriously. I want to disclose that I

too seriously. I want to disclose that I do not pay for cursor myself. I'm a part of like a creator program where they actually cover the cost of cursor for me. I've also been in similar programs

me. I've also been in similar programs for Claude and Anthropic. And I've also been in similar programs for Gemini as well. But I actually did pay for

well. But I actually did pay for anti-gravity usage straight up out of pocket. And I'm no longer in that

pocket. And I'm no longer in that program by Anthropic. So I also pay for Claude code out of pocket, but I still am in that like creator usage free usage for cursor right now just because I have a following on the internet. I've never

worked with Zed. I've never worked with OpenAI. So, I just want to make that

OpenAI. So, I just want to make that very clear right now. Now that you have that context, that's not going to change any of my recommendations. Though, I'm

going to be brutally honest to say like if cursor is trash, I will say cursor is trash. If I think clot is trash, I'll

trash. If I think clot is trash, I'll say it's trash. So, just to be very clear, that's what I'm saying. Okay, so

now let's get into some actual recommendations. Honestly, I would say

recommendations. Honestly, I would say that if you're someone that doesn't use that much AI and you don't care that much about like the bleeding edge of AI or you're someone that just loves being in the terminal and like you're a

terminal junkie, honestly, Zed might be a good option for you. Like Zed is really fast and I love that about Zed.

so much more performant over VS code forks. But I just personally couldn't

forks. But I just personally couldn't use it just cuz I think the AI first class citizen support just wasn't quite there. But if you're somebody that

there. But if you're somebody that doesn't care about the bleeding edge and you just want to have a really good coding experience and you love living in the terminal and really comfortable with CLI tools, I think Zed's actually a really good option. I'm not the right archetype for it, but I'm sure there are

plenty of you that exist out there. All

right, so scenario number one. If you

are the budget conscious person where you can really only afford one subscription at the lowest cheap tier, which I think right now is hovering around $20 a month, your choice is going to be between anti-gravity or cursor.

And I'm going to be very upfront and say there is such little difference between the two of them. I think cursor has the advantage in the fact that it's treated as a first class citizen for a lot of AI tooling out there like MCPS and all that

stuff. So you're always going to find

stuff. So you're always going to find documentation on how to add certain tool into cursor. Whereas with anti-gravity,

into cursor. Whereas with anti-gravity, it's not going to be treated with nearly as much first class citizen status as cursor. But at the time of filming this

cursor. But at the time of filming this video right now, I do think the agent manager panel of anti-gravity is really, really good and something I desperately wish Cursor had. I will say though, because cursor moves really fast and they ship bleeding edge stuff all the

time, I bet you by the end of this month, at the end of February, Cursor is going to come out with something that has this new agent manager UI spin to it. Because not only does anti-gravity

it. Because not only does anti-gravity have it, but also Codeex has it. and

people are responding really positively towards it. But with all that being

towards it. But with all that being said, I would say I would probably pay for cursor if over anti-gravity if I could only choose one just because of the first class citizen support out

there. But if you don't care about that

there. But if you don't care about that and and you really love using Gemini as a coding agent, then I would potentially argue that anti-gravity is going to be a better bang for your buck because you'll probably get a lot more Gemini usage than you would even like a composer one

usage directly within Cursor. And then

you can also pick and choose from the different models to use as well. Now in

terms of what my overall recommendation is for the best setup, I would say just you need to purchase two subscriptions.

One subscription to an AI code editor like a cursor or an anti-gravity and then one subscription to a directly provided like codeex or claude code provider directly from OpenAI or anthropic so that you can get the

maximum usage of either a GPT model or a cloud and anthropic model. Like for

example, in my most recent video where I talked about my AI coding workflow for 2026, I talked about how my go-to workflow right now and for a long time has been cursor with claude code. But

because things change so fast, like literally in the span of 2 weeks of me launching that video, Codex comes out and it's [ __ ] good, way better than Opus 4.6 in my personal usage. I would

probably actually switch my subscription off of Claude and use Codeex right now instead. So, I would say never lock

instead. So, I would say never lock yourself into any type of yearly plan.

Only subscribe to monthly because AI changes so fast. You're always going to be tweaking and changing your tools. So

basically once again pick one code editor cursor or anti-gravity or even zed if you want to and then just pick one of either codeex or clog. I think

that'll give you a plenty of usage across all the different models as well as one like flagship model that you get the most amount of usage for. And at the time of filming this video, which is in February of 2026, I would personally

probably if I could only pick one, I would do probably Cursor and Codeex as my go-to model provider and editor solution. But once again, things change

solution. But once again, things change and I'm sure Anthropic is going to come out with a crazy banger model that's going to be better than OpenAI's codeex models very, very soon as well. All

right, so that is it for this video.

This was a doozy. This was a fat one. I

hope you enjoyed the video and if you did, make sure to thumbs up the video, like it, share with your friends, and if you want to see more of my content, then make sure to subscribe to this channel as well. Let me know in the comments

as well. Let me know in the comments down below if you think I'm right, if you think I'm wrong, you agree, you disagree with me. Let me know what your coding setups are as well. I'm pretty

curious to see what other people are using. But that is all I got for today.

using. But that is all I got for today.

Thanks so much for watching. I'll see

you in the next one. Peace.