Shuriken vs Cursor agents (2026)

We make Shuriken. We tried to be fair; corrections welcome at office@shuriken.sh.

Quick answer#

Cursor's cloud agents (the feature once called background agents) run in virtual machines in Cursor's cloud, start from the editor, the web, Slack, GitHub or Linear, and bill usage to your Cursor plan. Shuriken runs the command-line agents you pick, Claude Code, Codex, Cursor's own CLI and 64 more, on your own computers and servers, on the subscriptions you already pay for.

Pick Cursor if you want hosted sandboxes and your machine off. Pick Shuriken if you want your own setup, your own plans and several accounts working for you.

At a glance#

Read on 2026-10-22, from Cursor's help page, Cloud Agents docs, Automations docs and pricing.

What Cursor does well#

Your laptop can be off. This is the big one. A cloud agent runs in Cursor's VM, so you can start a task, shut the lid and get on a plane. Shuriken can't do that: our agents run on your machines, so one of them has to be on.

A clean sandbox every time. Each agent gets its own VM with your repo, dependencies, secrets and network access. Cursor wraps runs in secret redaction, network policies and credential management. You set the environment up once with a snapshot or a Dockerfile.

Start from where the conversation is. Mention @Cursor in Slack, on a GitHub pull request or in Linear, and an agent picks it up. That fits teams that already live in those tools. Cursor also has an API, and Automations that start cloud agents on a schedule or on events from GitHub, GitLab, Slack, Linear, webhooks and more.

It's in the editor you already use. Pick Cloud by the agent input and you're done. Review happens in the same window you write code in.

An iOS app. Cursor's agents have an iOS app today. Ours are planned for November 2026.

Where Shuriken is different#

Your machines, your setup#

Shuriken's agents work in your real dev setup: the toolchain versions on your machine, the local database, the dev server you already run. Nothing gets cloned into someone else's VM, and there's no second copy of your .env. When an agent needs to see the app, it opens the same dev server you do, in a browser beside the chat. We explain why we chose this in Your agents run on your machines, not ours.

The machines you already have count. A desktop under the desk, an old laptop, a home server: add them all, and move a chat to whichever one is free.

Your subscriptions, not a new one#

Cursor bills cloud agent usage to your Cursor plan. Shuriken uses the plans you already pay for. If you have Claude Max and ChatGPT Plus, Claude Code runs on the first and Codex on the second.

And if you have more than one account per provider, Shuriken switches between them automatically. When the account in use reaches your switch point (99% by default) or hits a limit, your chats move to the account with the most room left, on every device at once. A Claude Code chat moves mid-task, on its next request. See source switching. Only add accounts you own and are entitled to use.

Any agent, Cursor's included#

Shuriken runs 67 coding agents. Cursor's own CLI agent is one of them, so you can run it next to Claude Code and Codex in the same project, each chat in its own worktree. A Cursor source in Shuriken is an API key, one per Cursor account (keeping a work and a personal Cursor account apart). Depth varies by agent: Claude Code shows the most detail. The full list is on coding agents. If you're weighing Cursor against Claude Code itself, not against Shuriken, see Cursor vs Claude Code.

What the cloud sees#

Our cloud runs no agents and stores no code or chats. Messages between your devices are end-to-end encrypted. The security page lists exactly what the cloud keeps.

Where Shuriken falls short#

If your laptop sleeps, its agents stop. We built Cocaine mode to keep a Mac running with the lid closed, and servers for always-on work, but a hosted VM is still the simpler answer if you own nothing that stays on. We also have no Slack trigger, and our phone apps aren't native yet.

Pricing#

Cursor prices are in US dollars per month; Shuriken's are in euros, VAT included for EU consumers.

The two aren't the same kind of cost. Cursor's price includes model usage up to a limit. Shuriken's doesn't include any: your agents use your Claude, ChatGPT or other plans, which you pay for separately.

Using them together#

This is the setup we'd suggest to a Cursor user:

1. Keep Cursor as your editor.
2. Run long agent work in Shuriken, on your own plans and machines.
3. When a chat is done, click Open in › Cursor. Shuriken opens that chat's worktree, or a file at its exact spot, in Cursor. It works with 44 targets, listed in Open anywhere.
4. For a task you want running while every machine you own is off, start a Cursor cloud agent.

If that sounds like your week, download Shuriken and open your first chat in Cursor.