Cursor vs Claude Code vs GitHub Copilot — Which AI Coding Tool Is Actually Worth It?

I've used all three of these tools on real projects — not toy demos, not benchmarks. Production code, messy codebases, tight deadlines. Here's what I actually think. GitHub Copilot: The Gateway Drug Price: $10/month (Individual) | $19/month (Business) Copilot was the first AI coding tool that felt useful rather than gimmicky. Tab-complete on steroids. It lives inside your editor, suggests code as you type, and mostly stays out of your way. The autocomplete is solid for boilerplate. Writing a REST endpoint? Copilot will finish the handler, the error checking, the response formatting. Tedious stuff that doesn't require creative thinking — Copilot eats it for breakfast. Copilot Chat (the sidebar conversation mode) is decent for quick questions. "What does this regex do?" or "Write a test for this function" — the answers are usually correct. The catch: Copilot thinks one file at a time. It doesn't understand your project structure, your architectural patterns, or why you named that service