Antigravity vs Cursor: Real Developer Tests Reveal Clear Winner

Google’s Antigravity vs Cursor competition has just heated up with real-world testing revealing surprising efficiency gaps between these AI coding assistants. When I put these tools to the test, Antigravity completed greenfield scaffolding in approximately 14 minutes hands-off plus 8 minutes of review, while Cursor required about 18 minutes of guided interaction . However, the speed advantage comes with notable tradeoffs.

Antigravity, Google’s ambitious new “agent-first” code environment built around Gemini 3 Pro , has scored an impressive 1487 Elo on the WebDev Arena leaderboard and achieved 54.2% on Terminal-Bench 2.0 . The meaning of Cursor in this comparison becomes clearer when examining their fundamental approaches – Cursor provides targeted assistance requiring developer guidance, whereas Antigravity enables autonomous agents to simultaneously control your editor, terminal, and browser . In fact, Google’s platform represents their most ambitious attempt yet to reimagine software development for the AI era, following their acquisition of the Windsurf team for a substantial $2.4 billion .

Throughout this comparison, I’ll share my firsthand experiences with both tools across various development scenarios, from TypeScript form building to test creation. By the end, you’ll understand exactly which tool delivers the most value for different coding tasks and why one ultimately outperforms the other for everyday development work.

Autonomy and Control: How Antigravity and Cursor Differ in Workflow

_{Image Source: Towards Data Science}

The fundamental difference between Antigravity and Cursor isn’t merely technical—it’s philosophical. Antigravity inverts the traditional developer-AI relationship: instead of embedding AI within your IDE, it places your development surfaces inside the agent’s workflow ^[1].

Task Delegation: Full Autonomy vs Inline Assistance

With Antigravity, you essentially “hire someone to do the work” ^[2]. You describe what you need—”Make me a sleek landing page for a web scraping tool”—then observe as agents autonomously execute the task. Additionally, you can spin up multiple agents working on different tasks simultaneously ^[2]. Conversely, Cursor keeps you firmly in control, offering assistance rather than autonomy. It functions as your ultimate pair programmer, integrating AI seamlessly into existing workflows through features like Command-K for inline editing ^[3].

Agent Behavior: Multi-step Planning vs Prompt-based Execution

Antigravity implements a “Pre-Act” approach, creating detailed multi-step execution plans with reasoning for each action ^[4]. Its agents operate across multiple surfaces: writing code in the editor, running commands in the terminal, and even controlling the browser to verify changes ^[5]. This cross-surface control enables closed-loop verification where agents can test their own work ^[5]. In contrast, Cursor focuses on immediate, synchronous assistance. Although its ReAct capability alternates between reasoning and taking observable actions ^[6], it primarily responds to specific prompts rather than planning entire workflows autonomously.

User Role: Architect vs Co-pilot

Antigravity transforms developers from “bricklayers to architects” ^[5] who delegate high-level missions to autonomous agents. Your bottleneck shifts from “typing code” to “reviewing agent work” ^[2]. This requires different skills: task decomposition, quality review, and architectural thinking ^[2]. Cursor, nonetheless, keeps you as the driver—you work on complex problems yourself, using Cursor’s codebase understanding to navigate and debug intricate projects ^[3]. The choice ultimately depends on whether you prefer hands-off delegation or surgical control over your code ^[2].

Code Accuracy and Safety in Real Projects

Testing reveals significant differences in how both tools handle real code. During practical evaluations with TypeScript API layers and React forms, I noticed distinct patterns in their output quality and safety.

TypeScript and React Form Test Results

Practical testing exposes the accuracy gap between these platforms. Antigravity achieves approximately 94% accuracy on complex refactoring tasks compared to Cursor’s 78% ^[7]. Despite this advantage, Antigravity sometimes takes ambitious but problematic approaches. Cursor typically delivers more predictable results, especially for typed interfaces. Moreover, when Cursor makes mistakes with prop shapes, a simple follow-up prompt corrects every reference simultaneously ^[2].

Inline Edits vs Overreaching Imports

The fundamental difference emerges in how each tool approaches code modification. Cursor creates small, targeted changes that respect existing codebase structure ^[2]. Consequently, this cautious approach results in fewer broken imports and cleaner implementations. In contrast, Antigravity occasionally introduces non-existent helper utilities—not exactly hallucinations but “optimistic imports” requiring cleanup ^[2]. Furthermore, during my testing, Antigravity missed a critical rate-limit check and incorrectly assumed logger implementations ^[2].

Unit Test Quality and Naming Conventions

Both tools generate functional tests, yet with notable quality differences. Antigravity’s tests tend toward over-mocking and excessive abstraction ^[2]. Cursor produces leaner tests that better align with professional coding standards. Additionally, adherence to AI-readable naming conventions significantly impacts quality—specifically using descriptive names versus generic terms ^[8]. For instance, properly named variables with type hinting produce more accurate results from both tools.

Speed and Efficiency: Real-World Developer Benchmarks

To evaluate real developer productivity with both tools, I conducted timed benchmarks across three common development scenarios. These tests expose the true efficiency gaps between Antigravity and Cursor in practical coding situations.

Greenfield Feature Build: Time to First PR

Creating new components from scratch reveals distinct performance patterns. For a complete CRUD microservice with auth middleware, Antigravity reached first PR in 30 minutes (plus 12 minutes cleanup) ^[2]. Cursor required approximately 38 minutes but delivered zero broken imports and cleaner test structure ^[2]. Notably, Antigravity planned endpoints efficiently but missed a critical rate-limit check ^[2].

Refactor Tasks: Edge Case Handling

For complex refactoring of legacy utilities involving date math and internationalization, the tools showed opposite strengths. Antigravity bravely attempted wholesale changes but created ripple effects into translations requiring partial rollbacks ^[2]. Cursor’s guided, test-first approach completed the refactor in 24 minutes with green tests throughout ^[2]. This aligns with research showing review time drops 60% when modifications stay below 200 lines ^[9].

Frontend Form with Async Validation

Implementing forms with async validation—typically challenging due to numerous edge cases ^[10]—highlighted each tool’s adaptability. Antigravity rapidly built the form structure and API connections but assumed an incorrect validation library, requiring 10 minutes of adjustments ^[2]. Cursor identified the validation pattern after seeing an existing snippet, producing the fastest implementation of all three benchmarks ^[2].

Best Use Cases: When to Choose Cursor or Antigravity

After extensive testing, both tools prove valuable in different scenarios, with each excelling at specific task types. Understanding their strengths helps maximize your productivity as a developer.

Cursor for Refactors and Daily Coding

Cursor shines brightest as your daily coding companion, particularly for precision-focused tasks. It excels with refactoring near critical paths like payment or authentication systems where small, accurate changes matter most ^[2]. Developers report a 2-3 times increase in coding speed for routine tasks ^[11], making it ideal for team repositories with established patterns. Practically speaking, Cursor’s strength lies in its surgical control—letting you maintain complete oversight while receiving targeted assistance.

Antigravity for Boilerplate and Spikes

Antigravity proves superior for scaffolding new projects where you need boilerplate code generated quickly ^[7]. It excels at spinning up foundational components across multiple layers—routes, models, and basic tests—particularly when conventions are clear ^[2]. Beyond this, Antigravity performs admirably for exploratory spikes and weekend projects where “good enough” scaffolding saves considerable development time. Its multi-file feature development capability allows it to scaffold entire Next.js projects, wire routes, and even test in the browser ^[12].

SEO Snippet Generation and Style Guide Alignment

Interestingly, both tools offer substantial value for content creators. For SEO blog writing and documentation maintenance, they efficiently generate code examples and snippets ^[2]. Cursor demonstrates particular strength in maintaining alignment with existing style guides—ensuring consistency across your codebase. Alternatively, Antigravity excels at rapidly creating complete example projects from scratch ^[2], perfect for comprehensive documentation needs.

Comparison Table

Conclusion

The battle between Google’s Antigravity and Cursor represents a fascinating fork in the evolution of AI coding assistants. Antigravity clearly excels at rapid scaffolding and autonomous development, completing tasks with minimal human intervention. Meanwhile, Cursor shines through precision, predictability, and developer-controlled workflows that respect existing codebases.

Throughout testing, Antigravity demonstrated impressive speed advantages for greenfield projects, finishing approximately 4 minutes faster than Cursor while requiring less active development time. However, this efficiency comes with notable tradeoffs. Cursor consistently produced safer, more predictable code with fewer broken imports and better alignment with professional standards.

The fundamental philosophical difference between these tools ultimately determines their ideal use cases. Antigravity transforms developers into architects who delegate entire workflows to AI agents, shifting the bottleneck from typing code to reviewing AI-generated work. Conversely, Cursor keeps developers firmly in control, acting as an intelligent assistant rather than an autonomous replacement.

Both tools offer substantial value depending on your specific needs. Antigravity proves superior for boilerplate generation, exploratory spikes, and weekend projects where rapid development outweighs perfect implementation. Cursor, nevertheless, stands out for daily coding tasks, especially when working on critical systems where precision matters more than raw speed.

This comparison underscores a critical insight about AI coding tools: the fastest implementation isn’t always the most valuable. Despite Antigravity’s impressive autonomous capabilities, many professional developers will likely prefer Cursor’s surgical precision and respect for existing patterns, particularly within team environments. The future of development tools seems headed toward this balance between autonomy and control, with each developer free to choose their preferred position on this spectrum based on their unique workflow and project requirements.

FAQs

Q1. What are the key differences between Antigravity and Cursor? Antigravity is an agent-first environment that allows autonomous control across multiple surfaces, while Cursor provides targeted assistance requiring developer guidance. Antigravity transforms developers into architects who delegate tasks, whereas Cursor keeps developers as active co-pilots in the coding process.

Q2. How do Antigravity and Cursor compare in terms of code accuracy and safety? Antigravity achieves about 94% accuracy on complex refactoring tasks, compared to Cursor’s 78%. However, Antigravity sometimes makes ambitious but problematic approaches, while Cursor typically delivers more predictable results and respects existing codebase structures.

Q3. Which tool is faster for greenfield project development? Antigravity completes greenfield scaffolding in approximately 14 minutes hands-off plus 8 minutes of review, while Cursor requires about 18 minutes of guided interaction. For a complete CRUD microservice, Antigravity reaches first PR in 30 minutes (plus 12 minutes cleanup), while Cursor takes about 38 minutes.

Q4. What are the best use cases for each tool? Antigravity excels at scaffolding new projects, generating boilerplate code, and handling exploratory spikes. Cursor is ideal for daily coding tasks, critical path refactoring, and precision-focused tasks, especially in team repositories with established patterns.

Q5. How do the tools handle multi-agent workflows? Antigravity offers a multi-agent feature that allows simultaneous work on different tasks, such as refactoring one component while writing tests for another. Cursor focuses more on immediate, synchronous assistance based on specific prompts, though recent updates have introduced similar multi-agent capabilities.

References

• [1] Google Antigravity – Cursor Killer Review
• [2] Skywork – Antigravity vs Cursor Comparison
• [3] AI Tool Analysis – Cursor Overview
• [4] Pre-Act Research Paper
• [5] Code Wars – Antigravity & Cursor
• [6] ReAct Agent Workflow – Gocodeo
• [7] Accuracy Comparison – Antigravity vs Cursor
• [8] AI-Readable Naming Conventions
• [9] AI Code Refactoring Research
• [10] Async Form Validation – FreeCodeCamp
• [11] Cursor Refactoring Efficiency Study
• [12] Antigravity Multi-File Development – BinaryVerse