🆕 Antigravity vs Cursor Review: The AI IDE war just exploded. Google launched Antigravity (Nov 18, 2025), an agentic development platform powered by Gemini 3 Pro.

Welcome to Our Updated Antigravity vs Cursor Review (December 2025)

The Bottom Line

The AI IDE war heated up dramatically since our original Antigravity vs Cursor comparison. Cursor just hit $1 billion in annual recurring revenue and raised $2.3B at a staggering $29.3B valuation. Meanwhile, Google’s Antigravity faces serious security concerns discovered by PromptArmor that every developer needs to understand before using it.

Cursor remains the reliable choice. Version 2.2 introduced Debug Mode (agents with runtime logs), a Visual Editor for web development, and the Graphite acquisition for better code reviews. Its proprietary Composer model now generates more code than almost any other LLM in the world.

Antigravity is still free and innovative, but security researchers found its agents can be tricked into exfiltrating credentials and code through prompt injection attacks. Google classified these as “intended behavior,” which raises red flags for enterprise use.

Pricing: Antigravity remains free (public preview with improved weekly rate limits). Cursor Pro costs $20/month with unlimited usage.

The Updated Verdict: Choose Cursor if you value reliability, security, and unlimited usage at $20/month. Choose Antigravity only for non-sensitive experimentation while it’s free, and disable auto-execute settings immediately. For a deeper comparison with terminal-based tools, check our Claude Code vs Gemini 3 CLI comparison.

🚨 Breaking: Antigravity Security Vulnerabilities Exposed

Before we dive into features, you need to know about critical security findings that emerged in late November 2025. Security researchers at PromptArmor discovered that Antigravity’s autonomous agents can be manipulated into stealing your credentials and code.

This vulnerability highlights a fundamental tension in agentic AI tools. The same autonomous capabilities that make Antigravity powerful also create security risks. While Cursor also faces theoretical prompt injection risks, its more conservative defaults and lack of browser-based exfiltration vectors make it significantly safer for enterprise use.

💰 Cursor’s Meteoric Rise: $29.3B Valuation and $1B ARR

While we were focused on feature comparisons, Cursor became the fastest-scaling B2B SaaS company in history. The numbers are staggering.

In November 2025, Cursor announced a $2.3 billion Series D at a $29.3 billion valuation, nearly tripling from its $9.9B valuation just five months earlier. The round was led by Accel and Coatue, with strategic investments from NVIDIA and Google (yes, Antigravity’s parent company invested in its competitor).

More impressive than the valuation is the revenue: Cursor crossed $1 billion in annualized revenue, reaching this milestone in under 24 months from launch. That’s faster than OpenAI. Their proprietary Composer model now generates more code than almost any other LLM in the world, and over 50% of Fortune 500 companies use Cursor.

CEO Michael Truell told CNBC they have “no plans to IPO anytime soon.” With growth like this, why rush? For more context on Cursor’s capabilities, see our detailed Cursor 2.0 review.

⚔️ The Core Conflict: Assistance vs. Autonomy

The fundamental difference between Cursor and Antigravity isn’t just features; it’s philosophy. Both tools are forks of VS Code, meaning your extensions, themes, and shortcuts work in both. But how they leverage AI is vastly different.

Cursor: The Reliable Assistant (Now Even More Powerful)

Cursor, the established leader with its $29.3B valuation, focuses on being the ultimate pair programmer. It integrates AI seamlessly into the existing developer workflow.

You use features like Command-K for inline editing (“Refactor this function”), or the codebase-aware chat to ask complex questions (“Where is the authentication logic handled?”). Cursor assists, explains, and generates code, but the developer remains firmly in the driver’s seat. It emphasizes reliability and control, utilizing its proprietary Composer model.

New in Cursor 2.2 (December 2025):

• Debug Mode: A human-in-the-loop debugging workflow that instruments your app with runtime logs, builds hypotheses, and verifies fixes with you
• Visual Editor: Drag-and-drop web design directly in the browser, with changes applied to your codebase via the agent
• Multi-Agent Judging: When running parallel agents, Cursor automatically evaluates all runs and recommends the best solution
• Plan Mode with Mermaid: Agents can generate inline diagrams to visualize implementation plans
• Graphite Acquisition: Better code review with “stacked pull requests” for dependent changes

Antigravity: The Agentic Future (With Caveats)

Google’s Antigravity, launched November 18, 2025, aims for autonomy. It treats AI agents as first-class workers rather than just assistants.

You don’t ask Antigravity to write a function; you give it a task. The agents (powered primarily by Gemini 3 Pro) then plan, execute, write code across multiple files, run tests in the terminal, and even control the browser to verify the output. Antigravity aims to handle end-to-end software tasks with minimal human intervention.

Recent Antigravity Updates:

• Improved Rate Limits: Google AI Pro/Ultra subscribers get priority access with higher limits
• Weekly Rate Limits: Free users now get weekly-based limits instead of daily caps
• MCP Store: Connect to Google Cloud services (AlloyDB, BigQuery, Spanner) directly from the IDE
• Agent Development Kit: Build AI agents with TypeScript using a code-first approach

🛸 Antigravity Deep Dive: Artifacts and the Manager View

Antigravity introduces several novel concepts designed to manage and trust autonomous agents.

The Agent Workflow

When you assign a task in Antigravity, the agent doesn’t just generate code. It operates across multiple surfaces:

• Editor: Writing and modifying code files.
• Terminal: Running tests, installing dependencies, debugging errors.
• Browser: Using a Chrome extension, agents can run web applications, observe behavior, and verify visual output. This is a major differentiator for web development, but also the primary attack vector for security exploits.

Artifacts: Trust Through Transparency

A major challenge with autonomous agents is understanding what they are doing. Instead of dense activity logs, Antigravity generates “Artifacts.”

These are digestible documents summarizing the agent’s work: task lists, implementation plans, screenshots of the UI, and even browser recordings of test runs. Developers can add Google Docs-style comments to these artifacts to redirect the agent mid-task. This allows for efficient review and builds trust in the automation.

Editor View vs. Manager View

Antigravity offers two distinct interfaces:

• Editor View: A traditional IDE experience (based on VS Code) with an agent in the side panel. Best for hands-on coding and synchronous work.
• Manager View: A “mission control” interface designed for running multiple agents across different workspaces simultaneously. Best for asynchronous tasks and supervising AI workflows.

This dual-view approach is unique and highlights Google’s vision of developers evolving into managers of AI agents. However, the Manager View’s asynchronous nature is precisely what makes security oversight difficult. For more on AI coding philosophies, explore our Claude Code review.

🧠 Cursor Deep Dive: Debug Mode, Visual Editor, and Composer

Cursor may lack the autonomous ambition of Antigravity, but it excels at providing reliable, context-aware assistance within the existing development workflow. The December 2025 updates significantly closed the feature gap while maintaining stability.

Debug Mode: Agents with Runtime Logs

Cursor 2.2’s standout feature is Debug Mode, a human-in-the-loop debugging workflow. When you describe a bug, the agent instruments your code with logging statements to find the root cause. It works across stacks, languages, and models.

The key innovation is that Debug Mode builds hypotheses, proposes fixes, and then invites you to verify. According to Cursor, this produces “more precise fixes instead of hundreds of lines of speculative code.”

Visual Editor: Design Meets Code

Cursor’s new Visual Editor brings Chrome DevTools-style inspection directly into the IDE. You can:

• Drag and drop rendered elements across the DOM tree
• Fine-tune styles with sliders, color pickers, and design system tokens
• Surface React component props in the sidebar for variant testing
• Describe changes in text and let the agent update the code

This bridges the gap between design and development. However, some developers note that every visual change invokes the AI agent, which adds cost. For simple CSS tweaks, you might prefer manual editing.

Model Flexibility and Composer

While Antigravity primarily pushes Gemini 3 Pro (though it supports Claude Sonnet 4.5 and GPT-OSS), Cursor offers broader model choice. Crucially, Cursor’s proprietary “Composer” model is optimized specifically for coding tasks.

In community testing, Composer is often preferred over Gemini 3 Pro or even GPT-4o for its speed (250 tokens/sec) and accuracy in code generation tasks. Cursor claims their in-house models now “generate more code than almost any other LLMs in the world.” This investment in proprietary models gives Cursor a significant edge in raw coding performance.

⚔️ Head-to-Head: Features That Matter (December 2025)

Let’s compare how these different philosophies translate into real-world features, updated with the latest December 2025 capabilities.

💡 Swipe left to see all features →

💡 Key Insight: Antigravity still leads in Innovation (Artifacts, Manager View) but now lags significantly in Security and Enterprise Readiness. Cursor excels in Stability (9/10), Security (8/10), Codebase Understanding (9/10), and now matches Antigravity’s browser capabilities with its Visual Editor. For budget-conscious developers, compare this with our GitHub Copilot Pro+ review.

🧪 Real Test Results: Updated for December 2025

I retested both tools on common development scenarios to see how the December updates impact real-world productivity.

Scenario 1: Building a New Feature (Web App)

Task: Add a user feedback form to an existing React application, including frontend UI, backend API endpoint, and database storage.

Antigravity (Autonomy): I gave the task to an agent. It created a plan, wrote the React component, scaffolded the API endpoint, and updated the database schema. It then opened the browser, navigated to the form, and generated a recording Artifact of itself submitting a test entry. The entire process took 12 minutes. The code required minor tweaks to match the existing style guide.
Grade: A

Cursor 2.2 (Assistance + Visual Editor): I used the codebase chat (powered by Composer) to scaffold the backend, then used the new Visual Editor to design the form UI by dragging components and adjusting styles visually. Changes were applied to the codebase automatically. Total time: 18 minutes, but the styling was perfect on the first try.
Grade: A

Scenario 2: Complex Debugging

Task: Investigate and fix a race condition in a Node.js microservice.

Antigravity (Autonomy): I asked the agent to fix the bug. It analyzed the code and attempted several fixes, running tests in the terminal after each attempt. It got stuck in a loop, unable to resolve the complex synchronization issue. Time: 15 minutes (failed).
Grade: C-

Cursor 2.2 (Debug Mode): I activated Debug Mode and described the symptoms. Cursor instrumented the code with logging, identified the race condition, and proposed a fix using optimistic locking. I verified the fix worked before approving. Time: 8 minutes.
Grade: A+

Scenario 3: Security-Sensitive Task

Task: Integrate a third-party API following their documentation page.

Antigravity (Autonomy): This is exactly the scenario where PromptArmor’s vulnerability was discovered. If that documentation page contained hidden malicious instructions, the agent could exfiltrate my .env credentials. I did not test this scenario with real credentials.
Grade: F (Security Risk)

Cursor 2.2 (Assistance): Cursor read the documentation but didn’t have autonomous browser access in a way that could exfiltrate data. I reviewed all proposed changes before they were applied.
Grade: B+ (Normal workflow, no security concerns)

💰 Pricing Breakdown: December 2025

The pricing landscape has evolved, particularly around rate limits and enterprise features.

Antigravity Pricing (Public Preview)

• Free ($0/month): Antigravity remains in “no-cost public preview.”
• Features: Access to Editor View, Manager View, and autonomous agents.
• Models: Gemini 3 Pro, Claude Sonnet 4.5, and GPT-OSS.
• Rate Limits (Updated): Free users now get weekly-based limits instead of daily caps. Google AI Pro/Ultra subscribers get priority access with significantly higher limits.

Cursor Pricing

• Free Plan ($0/month): Basic features, limited usage of fast models, very limited access to advanced models. Suitable for testing.
• Pro Plan ($20/month): Unlimited usage of fast models, higher limits on advanced models (Composer, Gemini 3 Pro, GPT-5.1). Essential for professional use.
• Business Plan ($40/user/month): Higher limits, centralized billing, enhanced security controls, admin dashboards.
• Ultra Plan ($200/month): 20x usage on all models, priority access to new features.

🎯 Who Should Use Which Tool? (Updated Recommendations)

Choose Antigravity If:

• You want to experiment with autonomous coding agents on personal, non-sensitive projects.
• You understand and accept the security risks and have disabled auto-execute settings.
• You never use production credentials or sensitive code in the IDE.
• You are budget-conscious and want free access to cutting-edge features.
• You primarily need browser-based verification for web applications and can supervise constantly.

Choose Cursor If:

• You work on any production, enterprise, or sensitive codebase. Full stop.
• You prioritize reliability and control. Cursor’s assistance features are predictable and keep you in the driver’s seat.
• You work on complex, legacy codebases. Cursor’s codebase understanding is superior.
• You need the new Debug Mode. For hunting down tricky bugs, this is a game-changer.
• You want visual web editing. The new Visual Editor rivals Antigravity’s browser features without the security risks.
• You prefer a mature, stable platform backed by a $29.3B company used by Fortune 500 teams.

💬 Community Verdict: What Developers Are Saying (December 2025)

I analyzed recent discussions on Reddit and Twitter/X following the security disclosures and Cursor updates.

Antigravity Sentiment (Post-Security Disclosure)

Praise:

• “The speed is still unbelievable. Feels almost instant.” (Reddit)
• “The way it thinks, resolves, and implements changes feels super fluid.” (Reddit)
• “MCP Store integration with Google Cloud is actually useful for enterprise devs.” (Reddit)

Concerns (Post-PromptArmor):

• “Can’t believe Google called the exfiltration vulnerability ‘intended behavior.’ That’s insane.” (Reddit)
• “I disabled auto-execute immediately. Running agents unsupervised is asking for trouble.” (Reddit)
• “Great for side projects, but I’d never use this on anything with real credentials.” (Twitter/X)

Cursor Sentiment

Praise:

• “Debug Mode is incredible. Found a race condition in 5 minutes that I’d been hunting for hours.” (Reddit)
• “The Visual Editor is surprisingly good. Not perfect, but saves a lot of back-and-forth.” (Reddit)
• “Composer keeps getting better. It’s faster AND smarter than it was last month.” (Twitter/X)

Complaints:

• “The UI changes are getting annoying. Every week something moves.” (Reddit)
• “Visual Editor invokes agents for every change. Adds up if you’re just tweaking CSS.” (Reddit)

The Honest Consensus

The community sentiment has shifted decisively toward Cursor since the security disclosures. Developers are impressed by Antigravity’s vision but increasingly unwilling to accept the security tradeoffs. Cursor is seen as the reliable, safe choice for professional work, while Antigravity is relegated to experimental side projects.

✅ Final Verdict (December 2025)

Google’s entry into the AI IDE market with Antigravity validated the shift towards agentic development. But six weeks in, the picture is more nuanced than the launch hype suggested.

Cursor is the clear winner for production work. Its $29.3B valuation and $1B ARR aren’t accidents. The tool offers reliable, powerful assistance integrated seamlessly into a mature VS Code environment. New features like Debug Mode and Visual Editor close the innovation gap with Antigravity while maintaining the security and stability that enterprises require.

Antigravity is a compelling vision marred by security concerns. Its autonomous agents, Manager View, browser control, and Artifacts are genuinely innovative. But when security researchers can trick your IDE into exfiltrating credentials and Google calls it “intended behavior,” that’s a dealbreaker for any serious development work.

Our Updated Recommendation:

1. For production work, enterprise projects, or any code touching real credentials: Use Cursor.
2. For experimental side projects with no sensitive data: Try Antigravity (free) with auto-execute disabled.
3. For terminal-first developers: Consider Claude Code as an alternative.

Try Antigravity (Free Preview): antigravity.google (disable auto-execute first!)
Try Cursor: cursor.com

❓ FAQs: Your Questions Answered

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Last Updated: December 27, 2025

Versions Tested: Google Antigravity (Public Preview, Dec 2025), Cursor 2.2 (Dec 2025)

Next Review Update: January 27, 2026