Cursor and Copilot live in your editor. Claude Code and Codex live in the terminal. ChatGPT lives in a tab. They've all gotten good at writing code and running commands — and then they stop. Gravy runs the whole application: it starts it, shows it to you, ships it, and watches it in production.
01 · Where each one lives
The biggest difference between these tools isn't how smart the model is — it's how much of the work happens where you can see and use it.
An editor pane that writes and, increasingly, runs commands — but the running app, the deploy, and production still live outside it.
A capable command-line agent. It edits and runs things, then hands you a summary and a localhost URL to open yourself.
Answers and drafts in a separate tab, away from your project. You paste everything back and run it by hand.
A desktop app that runs the whole application — preview, deploy, and errors included — in one place wired to your accounts.
02 · Side by side
Editor and terminal agents write and run code well. The difference shows up everywhere after the diff.
| Editor agents | Terminal agents | Chat | Gravy | |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Writes and edits your files | ● | ● | ◌ | ● |
| Runs builds, tests, and commands | ● | ● | — | ● |
| Starts your app and shows it running | — | — | — | ● |
| Previews mobile on a real device | — | — | — | ● |
| Deploys through your connected accounts | ◐ | ◐ | — | ● |
| Pulls production errors back in | — | — | — | ● |
| Remembers the project across sessions | ◐ | ◐ | — | ● |
| Your choice of model and provider | ◐ | ◐ | — | ● |
● yes ◐ partial / depends ◌ by hand — no
03 · Keep what you pay for
Already paying for Claude, Codex, Copilot, or Gemini? Connect the subscription and run Gravy on it — no second bill for a model you already have. Prefer your own key across 14+ providers, or managed Gravy AI? Those work too, and you can switch per project, per task. Your credentials stay on your machine.
0
extra model bills — bring the subscription you already pay for
04 · Switching over
Gravy works on the repos you already have — open a folder and go. There's no project to port, no lock-in format, no rewrite. Keep your editor for hand-edits if you like; hand Gravy the tasks worth handing off, and let it carry them from a sentence to a running, deployed app.
FAQ
It depends what you wanted Cursor to do. If you want a better editor with AI inside, alternatives are Windsurf, Zed, and Copilot in VS Code. If you wanted Cursor to take a task end to end — write, run, preview, and deploy the app — an editor isn't the right shape. Gravy is a desktop workspace where the agent owns the whole loop, not just the editing pane.
Cursor is an editor with an agent inside; Claude Code is a terminal agent. Pick Cursor if you want to keep editing files yourself with strong AI assistance. Pick Claude Code if you live in the terminal and want an agent that edits and runs commands from there. If you want one tool that also starts the app, deploys it, and watches production, neither is shaped for that — Gravy is.
You can use them to write code, plan, and debug — but they can't open your repo, run your build, deploy through your Vercel account, or watch your Sentry errors. You'd copy answers out of the chat and run everything yourself. Gravy is the workspace those answers happen inside, so the work actually finishes instead of being pasted somewhere.
Copilot started as autocomplete and is growing toward agentic behavior inside VS Code. What it still doesn't own: running your full app and showing the preview in the same window, previewing on a real mobile device, deploying through your connected accounts, pulling production errors back into the workspace, and keeping project memory across sessions. Gravy is built around that whole loop.
Most AI coding tools stop at the code. Gravy connects to Vercel, Supabase, Sentry, and Fly via OAuth, picks the right account automatically, and runs the deploy from inside the workspace. The agent treats shipping as a step in the loop, not a manual ritual with tokens you copy around.
No. Gravy opens the same files on disk that your editor does. Keep VS Code or your editor of choice for hand-edits; hand Gravy the tasks worth handing off — long builds, refactors, deploys, fixes from production errors — and let it carry them from a sentence to a running, deployed app.
Yes. Gravy lets you OAuth a Claude, ChatGPT Codex, GitHub Copilot, Google Code Assist, or Antigravity subscription and run on that quota — no second model bill. You can also bring an API key across 14+ providers, or use managed Gravy AI on credits. The choice is per-task; nothing is locked in.
Download Gravy, open a repo you already have, and hand it a task end to end — written, run, previewed, and shipped.