Claude Code vs Cursor vs v0: What I Actually Use for What

I get asked this constantly, usually phrased as "which one should I use." Wrong question. They're not competing for the same job.

Claude Code — the one that runs

This is where I hand off actual work and walk away for a while. Terminal-first, agentic, good at multi-step tasks where it needs to read a bunch of files, make a plan, and execute across all of them without me babysitting every edit. When I say "add Stripe billing to this app" and want it to actually go figure out the schema changes, the webhook handler, and the checkout flow on its own — that's a Claude Code job. It's also what I run my security passes through, because it can go read the whole codebase in one pass instead of me feeding it files one at a time.

Cursor — the one I sit next to

Cursor is where I want to see every change before it lands. IDE-integrated, inline diffs, tight loop of "here's what I want to change, show me the diff, let me accept or push back line by line." I reach for this when I'm working inside code I already understand well and want fast, reviewed iterations — refactors, bug fixes, anything where I want to stay in the driver's seat rather than hand over the whole task.

v0 — the one that gives me a starting point

v0 isn't really a coding tool for me, it's a layout tool. I describe a screen or paste a reference image and it gives me something structurally reasonable to start from — component layout, basic styling, a shape I can build on. I almost never ship what it generates as-is. I take it, strip what I don't need, and rebuild the logic myself in Cursor or Claude Code. Its job is to save me from staring at a blank page, not to write the final product.

How they actually fit together on one build

v0 gives me the shell of a screen → Cursor is where I wire it up and iterate tightly on it → Claude Code is what I hand the bigger, multi-file, "go do this whole feature" tasks to, especially anything involving security, billing, or touching a lot of files at once.

If you're only going to learn one of these well, learn the difference between "I want to review every line" (Cursor) and "I want to hand off the whole task" (Claude Code). That's the actual decision, not which tool has better autocomplete.