These three tools get compared as if they are the same product. They are not. They are three different bets about how you want to work and, more importantly, about where your code goes when an AI reads it. That second question is the one most reviews skip, and it is the one that should decide your choice.
We have run all three in the studio. Here is the honest read.
The three contenders, in one line each
- Cursor is a closed, paid, cloud desktop app. A polished fork of VS Code with an agent built in. The most refined experience, and the one that sends your code to someone else’s servers.
- Pi is an open, terminal-first agent for people who live in the shell and want an extensible harness they can shape.
- OpenCode is an open desktop app (with optional CLI and IDE modes) that can point at a cloud model or a model on your own machine. The open answer to Cursor’s experience.
The real axis: where does your code go?
Strip away the feature lists and one decision sits underneath everything: does your code leave your machine?
With Cursor, it does. That is not a flaw, it is the design. The quality comes partly from routing your context to strong cloud models. If your work is not sensitive and you want the smoothest agent on the market, that trade can be worth it.
With OpenCode pointed at a local model through Ollama, your code does not leave the building. Same agentic behavior, same “read files, edit, run commands” loop, zero cloud calls. The ceiling is your local model rather than a frontier cloud model, but for most day-to-day work that ceiling is high enough.
Pi sits where you put it. Point it at a local model and it is private; point it at a cloud API and it is not. It gives you the control, and the responsibility.
How they compare, dimension by dimension
Where you work. Cursor is an editor you live inside. Pi is a terminal you drive. OpenCode is a normal app window you open, and it also offers CLI and editor modes if you want them. If “I do not want to learn another shell tool” describes you, OpenCode and Cursor are the candidates and Pi is not.
Setup cost. Cursor: download, sign in, pay. OpenCode: download, pick a provider, done; add Ollama if you want it local. Pi: comfortable if you already work in a terminal, more friction if you do not.
Privacy. OpenCode (local) and Pi (local) keep code on your machine. Cursor does not. This is the cleanest line between them.
Cost. Cursor is a monthly subscription. OpenCode and Pi are free and open source; your only cost is the hardware you already own, or a cloud API you opt into per task.
Quality ceiling. Cursor, riding frontier cloud models, has the highest ceiling on the hardest problems. OpenCode and Pi inherit whatever model you point them at. On a strong local coding model they are very capable; on the hardest tasks a frontier cloud model still pulls ahead.
Extensibility. Pi is the most shapeable for people who want to build their own workflows around the agent. OpenCode leans on its app polish and its LSP-aware reading of your code. Cursor is the most finished but the least open.
Who should pick what
Pick Cursor if your code is not sensitive, you want the single most polished agent available, and a monthly bill is fine. You are buying refinement and a frontier ceiling, and paying with a subscription and your code leaving your machine.
Pick OpenCode if you want an agent in a normal app window, you care that your code stays on your laptop, and you would rather not pay monthly. Wire it to Ollama and you have Cursor’s shape with a local model underneath. This is the one we reach for most.
Pick Pi if you live in the terminal, you want maximum control, and you intend to extend the harness rather than just use it.
What we actually run
OpenCode pointed at Ollama, with Nemotron as the model, is our daily driver. The reason is not a benchmark. It is that the privacy story is intact, the bill is zero, and it opens like an app instead of demanding a terminal or a Docker container. When a task is genuinely hard, we will switch OpenCode to a cloud provider for that one job and switch straight back. The default stays local.
That is the honest hierarchy: Cursor is the most polished and the least private, Pi is the most controllable and the least approachable, and OpenCode is the one that gives most people the best of both, an app you open, running a model you own.
We do not tell you which to use. You watch the work, you make your own call. But if your code is worth keeping on your own machine, that should weigh more than a feature checklist. Curious about these things. You should be too.
Harness your curiosity.
— Stridenote · № 002