Stop paying for Cursor getting dumber — switch to Trae now

Hi everyone, I’m luckySnail. I recently used Cursor to build my own full-stack product, SVG Show. I deeply felt how powerful Cursor is, and I didn’t hesitate to get the Pro membership. Even though $20 is expensive, the value it brings matches my expectations. But lately, while using Cursor, I’ve increasingly felt that it’s getting dumber! No matter how I constrain it or write various rules, I can’t stop it from talking nonsense, making random changes, or doing unexpected things… It’s really driving me crazy! It’s that feeling where you clearly see it could do something before, and then suddenly it slacks off. The official forum is also full of complaints:

But complaining is useless. After trying to replace Cursor with Trae, I found it can actually do the job, and it’s still free. If you’re also being tormented by Cursor, I suggest you try Trae.

Trae is great

Actually, when Trae was first released, I used it to develop a tool. If you’re interested, you can check it out here: https://www.luckysnail.cn/posts/post-44 . I also briefly introduced its basic usage there. If you’re a Cursor user switching over, there’s zero learning curve. Below I’ll share my experience using it for development and the improvements I’ve noticed.

Supports more themes

When I first started using it, it only supported three themes, but now you can select more themes from VS Code themes! Don’t underestimate this update — it was a common complaint back then. Looks like the dev team really listens to feedback.

Supports tons of large models

It now supports the strongest coding model, Claude 3.7, as well as the latest DeepSeek-V3. In practice, Claude 3.7 still has better coding ability. I recommend using Claude 3.7 first, then other models.

Besides these models, you can click “Add Model” to add more.

Better preview capability

Other capabilities

Besides the features above, it has all the basic abilities of Cursor:

• Code indexing
• Chat mode supports image uploads with some models
• Inline code completion
• Trae-Builder Mode, which is Cursor’s agent mode

When I switched to Trae for vibe coding, it felt very smooth. The answers were basically correct, and it didn’t make random changes. If you’re also tormented by Cursor’s degradation, I highly recommend Trae, especially since it’s still free to use.

Today is 2025, the first day of April, and also April Fools’ Day. Happy April Fools’ Day!