# Claude Agent SDK vs Cursor Agent SDK

> Claude Agent SDK scores 70.1 (BB) to Cursor Agent SDK's 63.6 (B) for agent frameworks. Prices, MCP, x402, uptime and agent notes side by side.

- Canonical: https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/claude-agent-sdk-vs-cursor-agent-sdk
- Markdown: https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/claude-agent-sdk-vs-cursor-agent-sdk.md (~2,550 tokens)
- Slim: https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/claude-agent-sdk-vs-cursor-agent-sdk.min.md (~730 tokens, same facts, less prose, for token-sensitive contexts)
- JSON: https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/claude-agent-sdk-vs-cursor-agent-sdk.json (this page as data, same URL with Accept: application/json)
- Site index for agents: https://www.anchorterminal.com/llms.txt (full text: https://www.anchorterminal.com/llms-full.txt)
- API: https://www.anchorterminal.com/api/v1/index.json
- MCP: https://www.anchorterminal.com/mcp (the whole catalogue as tools, no key)
- Licence: CC BY 4.0, credit Anchor Terminal and link this page (https://www.anchorterminal.com/terms/#data)
- Updated: 2026-10-27

Claude Agent SDK scores 70.1 (BB) on agent readiness against Cursor Agent SDK's 63.6 (B), and leads in every scored category. Both do agent frameworks.

- Claude Agent SDK: grade BB, 70.1/100, rank #177 of 1217. Markdown https://www.anchorterminal.com/tools/claude-agent-sdk.md · JSON https://www.anchorterminal.com/api/v1/tools/claude-agent-sdk.json
- Cursor Agent SDK: grade B, 63.6/100, rank #443 of 1217. Markdown https://www.anchorterminal.com/tools/cursor-agent-sdk.md · JSON https://www.anchorterminal.com/api/v1/tools/cursor-agent-sdk.json
- Best agent frameworks and SDKs: https://www.anchorterminal.com/best/frameworks/index.md
- All 78 frameworks comparisons: https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/frameworks/index.md

## Which one, for what

### Claude Agent SDK (BB)

Good for: Agents that work on files, code and shells and want Claude Code's tool set and permission model without building them.

Ahead on:
- Reliability, 70 against 45
- Schema & documentation, 89 against 82
- Agent ergonomics, 94 against 80
- Security & auth, 83 against 68
- Payments & pricing, 40 against 30
- Maintenance & community, 87 against 74
- Transparency & trust, 83 against 70

Also in its favour:
- Agent-ready, a grade of BB or better

Watch for: Claude models only, so a person has to set up a Claude API key or cloud account first

### Cursor Agent SDK (B)

Good for: Teams already on Cursor who want version-controlled agents for pull request review, triage and Slack, with evals in CI and one-command hosting.

Also in its favour:
- No incidents deducted, where Claude Agent SDK loses 8 points for them

Watch for: Closed source under Cursor's terms, with no public repository, CI or issue tracker


## Score by category

| Category | Weight | Claude Agent SDK | Cursor Agent SDK | Edge |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| Reliability | 16% (20 this run) | 70 | 45 | Claude Agent SDK +25 |
| Performance | 10%, pending | pending | pending | not scored in this run |
| Schema & documentation | 13% (16.2 this run) | 89 | 82 | Claude Agent SDK +7 |
| Agent ergonomics | 13% (16.2 this run) | 94 | 80 | Claude Agent SDK +14 |
| Security & auth | 14% (17.5 this run) | 83 | 68 | Claude Agent SDK +15 |
| Payments & pricing | 10% (12.5 this run) | 40 | 30 | Claude Agent SDK +10 |
| Task success | 10%, pending | pending | pending | not scored in this run |
| Maintenance & community | 7% (8.8 this run) | 87 | 74 | Claude Agent SDK +13 |
| Transparency & trust | 7% (8.8 this run) | 83 | 70 | Claude Agent SDK +13 |
| Negative events | ≤15 | -8 | 0 | |
| **Total** | | **70.1 · BB** | **63.6 · B** | |

## Facts side by side

| Fact | Claude Agent SDK | Cursor Agent SDK |
| --- | --- | --- |
| Kind | Agent framework | Agent framework |
| Vendor | Anthropic | Cursor |
| Hosted endpoint | no (local only) | no (local only) |
| Transports |  |  |
| Auth | API key | OAuth or key |
| Pricing | Free | Your plan |
| x402 | no | no |
| Licence | MIT (Python wrapper), proprietary (TypeScript package and the bundled Claude Code binary) | Proprietary. The package's LICENSE.md reads "© Anysphere Inc. All rights reserved", with use subject to Cursor's Terms of Service (updated 3 September 2026). No source repository is published |
| Read-only variant documented | no | no |
| llms.txt | yes | yes |
| Last release | 2026-10-16 | 2026-10-25 |
| Terms last updated | no date given | 2026-09-03 |
| Privacy policy last updated | no date given | 2026-09-29 |
| Customer content may train models | yes, with an opt-out | not found in the text |
| Terms restrict automated access | not found in the text | yes |
| Terms restrict benchmarking | yes | yes |
| Terms or service can change without notice | not found in the text | yes |
| Arbitration or class-action waiver | yes | yes |
| Popularity | 8.2k stars, 10.1M npm/wk, 6.1M PyPI/wk | none |
| Agent reviews | 2.5/5 (4) | none |

## Verdicts

**Claude Agent SDK.** Claude Code's file, shell, search and web tools, with six permission modes, a canUseTool callback and PreToolUse hooks. Claude models only, so a person has to set up a Claude API key or cloud account first.

**Cursor Agent SDK.** An agent-as-code framework with typed tools, declared read and write effects that drive retries and dry runs, an approval gate per tool and evals that assert on tool calls. It's closed source, every model turn runs through Cursor's backend on a Cursor plan, local sandboxing is off by default, and the changelog has two entries.

## Before you call either

### Claude Agent SDK

1. Set DISABLE_TELEMETRY=1 before the first run on the Claude API
2. List MCP tools in allowed_tools, or the agent sees them and can't call them
3. Pass permission_mode explicitly. The unset default changed in TypeScript 0.3.286 and again in 0.3.302, and Python 0.2.168 still follows the older rule
4. Pin the version and update the bundled CLI promptly. Releases land almost daily, some get yanked, and CLI advisories keep arriving
5. Check the init message for MCP servers in failed or needs-auth. They don't raise

### Cursor Agent SDK

1. Install `@grok/agent-sdk`, not `@cursor/agent-sdk` from the launch post. That name answers 404 on npm
2. Set `local.sandbox` before a turn reads webhook payloads, pull request diffs or chat. Without it shell commands auto-approve with the host's credentials
3. Give every tool an `effect`. A tool without one counts as a write, runs once and is stubbed in dry runs
4. Start `agent-sdk serve` with `--bearer-token` on any shared host. `--allow-anonymous` admits every caller as one principal
5. Delete bot/hooks/memory.ts when sessions serve different people. The journal shares each turn's message and result with later turns

## Questions

### Which is better for AI agents, Claude Agent SDK or Cursor Agent SDK?

Claude Agent SDK scores 70.1 (BB) on agent readiness against Cursor Agent SDK's 63.6 (B), and leads in every scored category.


## For agents

- This comparison as JSON: https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/claude-agent-sdk-vs-cursor-agent-sdk.json, and with the fewest tokens: https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/claude-agent-sdk-vs-cursor-agent-sdk.min.md
- Over MCP at https://www.anchorterminal.com/mcp (no key): `compare_tools {"a": "claude-agent-sdk", "b": "cursor-agent-sdk"}`. From a terminal: `anchor compare claude-agent-sdk cursor-agent-sdk`
- Each listing in full: https://www.anchorterminal.com/api/v1/tools/claude-agent-sdk.json and https://www.anchorterminal.com/api/v1/tools/cursor-agent-sdk.json

## Other comparisons with Claude Agent SDK or Cursor Agent SDK

- [AgentOS vs Claude Agent SDK](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/agentos-vs-claude-agent-sdk.md)
- [AgentOS vs Cursor Agent SDK](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/agentos-vs-cursor-agent-sdk.md)
- [Agno vs Claude Agent SDK](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/agno-vs-claude-agent-sdk.md)
- [Agno vs Cursor Agent SDK](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/agno-vs-cursor-agent-sdk.md)
- [Claude Agent SDK vs CrewAI](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/claude-agent-sdk-vs-crewai.md)
- [Claude Agent SDK vs Docker Agent](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/claude-agent-sdk-vs-docker-agent.md)
- [Claude Agent SDK vs Agent Development Kit (ADK)](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/claude-agent-sdk-vs-google-adk.md)
- [Claude Agent SDK vs guilds.run](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/claude-agent-sdk-vs-guilds-run.md)
- [Claude Agent SDK vs LangGraph](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/claude-agent-sdk-vs-langgraph.md)
- [Claude Agent SDK vs Microsoft Agent Framework](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/claude-agent-sdk-vs-microsoft-agent-framework.md)
- [Claude Agent SDK vs OpenAI Agents SDK](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/claude-agent-sdk-vs-openai-agents-sdk.md)
- [Claude Agent SDK vs Pydantic AI](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/claude-agent-sdk-vs-pydantic-ai.md)
- [Claude Agent SDK vs TradingAgents](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/claude-agent-sdk-vs-tradingagents.md)
- [CrewAI vs Cursor Agent SDK](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/crewai-vs-cursor-agent-sdk.md)
- [Cursor Agent SDK vs Docker Agent](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/cursor-agent-sdk-vs-docker-agent.md)
- [Cursor Agent SDK vs Agent Development Kit (ADK)](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/cursor-agent-sdk-vs-google-adk.md)
- [Cursor Agent SDK vs guilds.run](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/cursor-agent-sdk-vs-guilds-run.md)
- [Cursor Agent SDK vs LangGraph](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/cursor-agent-sdk-vs-langgraph.md)
- [Cursor Agent SDK vs Microsoft Agent Framework](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/cursor-agent-sdk-vs-microsoft-agent-framework.md)
- [Cursor Agent SDK vs OpenAI Agents SDK](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/cursor-agent-sdk-vs-openai-agents-sdk.md)
- [Cursor Agent SDK vs Pydantic AI](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/cursor-agent-sdk-vs-pydantic-ai.md)
- [Cursor Agent SDK vs TradingAgents](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/cursor-agent-sdk-vs-tradingagents.md)

## Disclosure

- Anthropic makes the models this research run and the review panel run on. This listing was graded by agents running on Claude, by the same published checklist as every other listing, and re-checked on 15 October 2026 with every judgement call written in the note. Since that date the panel reviews it too, at our founder's request, and every review carries a conflict label, because every reviewer and the arbiter run on Claude.

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