I am a heavy user of agentic coding tools, part of my job is to evaluate their capabilities and limitations. This is an experiment where I am tracking their capabilities, limitations and my overall impression of them.
Note: Some cells have more information when you hover over them.
Colour Key:
- Requires subscription
- Minor limitation
- Moderate
- Significant
- Major
| Claude Code | Cline | OpenAI Codex | Github Copilot | Google Antigravity | Cursor | Amazon Kiro | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Functionality | |||||||
| Inference Providers & Model Selection | Any that support Claude, DeepSeek, GLM and other strong models | Any | OpenAI models (US Based), Can BYO baseURL | US Based with limited context window, Can BYO | US Based | Cursor - US Based, limited by plan, BYO option heavily limits features | US Based, Waitlist |
| Sub-Agents | Yes | Yes | No | No | Partial / Limited | No | No |
| Custom Agents | Yes | No (coming soon) | No | No | Yes | No | No |
| Prompt templates | Yes | Yes | No | Yes | Partial | Yes | No |
| Coding abilities | Best in class | Best in class | Good | Lower end | Good | Mid/Lower end | Mid range |
| Speed | Fastest | Fastest | Medium/Fast | Slow | Medium | Slow | Slow |
| MCP Spec alignment | High | Medium/High | Medium/High | High | Medium | Medium/Low | Low |
| Skills | Yes | No | No | No | No | No | No |
| Operational management | |||||||
| Consumption budget controls | No | With enterprise / teams subscription | Partial | N/A | No | No (for BYO) | N/A |
| Developer experience | |||||||
| User Interface | VSCode, IntelliJ IDE, TUI, Zed, CLI | VSCode IDE, IntelliJ, CLI | VSCode IDE, CLI | VSCode, Zed, CLI | Standalone IDE (VSCode Fork), CLI | Standalone IDE (VSCode Fork), CLI | Standalone IDE (VSCode Fork) |
| Babysitting required | Low | Low | Medium/Low | High | High | High | Very High |
| Plan/Act modes | Yes | Yes | No | Partial | Partial (doesn't work) | No | No |
| Community size | Large | large | Medium | Large | Small | Large | Small |
| Source | Closed source | Yes | Open source | Yes | Closed source | Closed source | Closed source |
| Configuration management | |||||||
| File based configuration | Yes | No | Yes | Limited - no RBAC | Limited | No | Limited - no RBAC or rules |
| Per-project configuration (rules, MCP, RBAC) | Yes | In beta | Partial | Limited - no RBAC | Limited | No | Limited - no RBAC |
| Centralised configuration | Partial | With enterprise / teams subscription | No | No | No | No (for BYO), Yes for US based | No |
| Automation | |||||||
| Automation hooks | Yes | Yes | Yes | No | No | No | Yes |
| Headless / CLI / CI/CD mode | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | In beta | No |
| Automated Context Cleanup | Yes | Yes | No | Yes | No | No | |
| Access control | |||||||
| RBAC - Commands | Yes | With enterprise / teams subscription | Partial | No | No (has basic allow list - easy to bypass) | No | No |
| RBAC - MCP tools | Yes | With enterprise / teams subscription | No | No | No | No | No |
| RBAC - Web domains | Yes | With enterprise / teams subscription | No | No | No | No | No |
| SSO | Yes | With enterprise / teams subscription | No | Yes | Yes | No (for BYO), Yes for US based | Yes |
| User Interface (Subjective) | |||||||
| User Interface | Best | Best | Good | Good | Good | Good | Average |
| Cost (Estimate) | |||||||
| Monthly cost ($USD) estimate for agentic coding (used to the best of the tools limitations) | $100-$200 | $1200-$2200 | $200+ | $100-$300 | $200+ | $200+ | $200+ |