Alternatives · formerly Background Agents
Cursor Cloud Agents alternatives
Cursor renamed Background Agents to Cloud Agents in the 2.0 changelog (29 October 2025). The job is the same: an isolated VM, the Cursor Agent, a draft PR. Teams look here when they want that job without the Cursor editor as the center of gravity.
Facts checked 15 September 2026. Prices and limits move. Read the citations.
Rush Cloud is our product and is listed first.
Read this first
The useful distinction
Cursor renamed Background Agents to Cloud Agents in the 2.0 changelog (29 October 2025). The job stayed: an isolated VM, the Cursor Agent, a draft PR.
Teams leave that loop when they want Claude Code, Codex, or OpenCode as the engine, or when the session has to be a Project other people can join without making Cursor the source of truth.
Routing
If you… use… not if
| If you | Use | Not if |
|---|---|---|
| Want Cursor's Agent, unattended, with Cursor's environment snapshots | Cursor Cloud Agents | You are on the Hobby plan. Official troubleshooting: paid plan required. |
| Want the same Claude Code or Codex binary you run locally | Rush Cloud, or the vendor web (Claude Code on the web / Codex cloud) | You need Cursor Tab, Cursor rules, and the Agents Window as one product |
| The trigger is a GitHub issue and the reviewer lives on github.com | Copilot cloud agent | The task needs more than 59 minutes or a second repository |
Landscape
The field
Prices and limits from vendor pages retrieved 15 September 2026. Check the source before you buy.
| Tool | Job | What runs | Isolation | Proof | Price | Taps out |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Rush Cloud | Run the harness you already use, in an isolated team session | Claude Code, Codex, or OpenCode | One sandbox per run | PR + trajectory, or needs_review | Free 5 agent-hours / month, then $20 Pro | Three harnesses. us-west-2. Customer VPC is roadmap. |
| Devin | Cognition's autonomous engineer on a ticket | Devin Brain + Devbox | Isolated VM per session | PR on your SCM | Pro $20 / mo; Teams $80 min | No BYO model keys. Opaque quotas. |
| Cursor Cloud Agents | Cursor Agent, unattended, in a cloud VM | Cursor Agent | Firecracker microVM | Draft PR + artifacts | Paid Cursor plan, from $20 / mo | Needs Cursor. Commands auto-run. |
| GitHub Copilot cloud agent | Issue-to-PR inside GitHub Actions | Copilot cloud agent | Ephemeral Actions VM | Draft PR + session logs | Paid Copilot, from $10 / mo | 59-minute cap. GitHub repos only. |
| Claude Code on the web | Claude Code, hosted by Anthropic | Claude Code | Anthropic VM (~4 vCPU / 16 GB) | GitHub branch + PR | Claude Pro $20 / mo and up | Research preview. Claude and GitHub only. |
| Codex cloud | OpenAI Codex in a ChatGPT cloud box | Codex | Container; agent phase offline by default | Diff + PR on GitHub/GitLab | ChatGPT Plus $20 / mo and up | API-key path has no cloud. |
| Factory Droids | Factory agent on a persistent computer | Droid | Managed 4 CPU / 8 GB computer | PR from Slack or the app | Pro $20; managed computers from Plus $100 | Unpublished rate limits. Own harness. |
| Google Jules | Async Gemini agent on a GitHub issue | Jules / Gemini | Fresh Ubuntu VM per task | GitHub PR | 15 tasks / day free; paid via Google AI | GitHub only. Individual Gmail plans. |
| Amp orbs | Amp agent on a remote machine | Amp | Fresh orb per thread | You push; gh pr create via AGENTS.md | Hobby free; Individual $20 + orb hours | Own harness. GHES unsupported. |
Depth
In depth
Free 5 agent-hours a month, then $20 Pro. 15 September 2026.
Rush Cloud
Harness-agnostic cloud sessions with Project multiplayer.
Cursor Cloud Agents reconstruct a laptop environment in a VM. Rush starts from the harness binary and a prepared GitHub repo.
Official Cursor limit that matters in practice: Move to Cloud does not snapshot uncommitted local files. Rush never claimed to lift a dirty working tree.
Taps out. Not an editor. No Tab completion. No Cursor rules store.
Claude Pro $20 / mo. 15 September 2026.
Claude Code on the web
Claude Code users who want Anthropic to host the box.
Same Claude Code harness. Research preview. GitHub to push. Sessions persist if you close the browser.
Taps out. Claude only. ZDR orgs cannot use cloud sessions.
Pro $20 / mo. 15 September 2026.
Devin
Autonomous ticket work with Cognition's agent, Slack, and Linear.
Devin is a different Brain. Cursor Cloud Agents are Cursor's Agent in a VM. Pick the agent you already trust, then pick the runtime.
Taps out. No BYO model keys. Quotas unpublished.
Copilot Pro $10 / mo. 15 September 2026.
GitHub Copilot cloud agent
GitHub-native issue assignment.
Stays inside Actions. Official 59-minute cap. One PR per task.
Taps out. GitHub-hosted repos only.
Sourced numbers
What we can chart
Cursor's own share of internal PRs from cloud agents
Vendor numbers from Cursor blogs. 24 Feb 2026: more than 30%. 2 Sep 2026: more than 60%. These are Cursor's internal merge share, not an independent win-rate.
Self-serve starting price (individual, USD / month)
List prices from vendor pages retrieved 15 September 2026. Rush has no seat fee: the free plan includes 5 agent-hours a month and Pro is $20, so the bar is the seat, not the bill.
Rush Cloud
What Rush Cloud is
If your team already lives in Cursor, Cloud Agents are the native off-laptop path. Rush is the path when the harness on the invoice is Claude Code, Codex, or OpenCode.
Honest limits
Skip Rush if
- You need a team that already runs Claude Code, Codex, or OpenCode. Rush does not invent a fourth harness.
- Sandboxes are us-west-2. Customer VPC is roadmap. A signed compliance report is not something we publish today.
- Compute is metered. Sixty minutes are included per user per calendar month. The invoice bills sandbox time after that allowance.
- You will review the PR. Rush does not merge for you.
FAQ
Questions people actually ask
Can I use Rush and the vendor cloud side by side?
Yes. Many teams keep Claude Code on the web or Cursor Cloud Agents for a single-vendor loop and put Rush on the tasks that need a shared Project, a second harness, or a trajectory they can hand to a reviewer.
Does Rush replace Claude Code or Codex?
No. Rush runs those binaries. You keep the seat or the key. Rush is the runtime.
Where does the code go when I leave?
Anything pushed to your GitHub remote stays there. That is the off-ramp on every product in this set, including Rush.
Are Cloud Agents free on Cursor Hobby?
No. Cursor help: Cloud Agents are on paid plans. TechCrunch reported the same limit when the web app launched on 30 June 2025.
Do they bill by the minute?
Official docs bill Cloud Agents at the selected model's API price. Staff on the Cursor forum (15 June 2026) said idle wall-clock is not charged. There is no current official 'cloud agent minutes' unit.
Cluster
Keep reading
Citations
Sources
Every factual claim on this page traces to one of these URLs. Retrieval date is 15 September 2026 unless the source prints an earlier published date.
- [1] Cursor Docs, “Cloud Agents”, retrieved 2026-09-15. https://cursor.com/docs/cloud-agent
- [2] Cursor, “New Coding Model and Agent Interface · Cursor 2.0”, published 2025-10-29. https://cursor.com/changelog/2-0
- [3] Cursor, “Cursor · Pricing”, retrieved 2026-09-15. https://cursor.com/pricing
- [4] TechCrunch, “Cursor launches a web app to manage AI coding agents”, published 2025-06-30. https://techcrunch.com/2025/06/30/cursor-launches-a-web-app-to-manage-ai-coding-agents/
- [5] Rush, “Rush Cloud product requirements”, retrieved 2026-09-15. https://tryrush.ai/cloud
Next
Run the next Task on Rush Cloud
Connect a repository. Pick Claude Code, Codex, or OpenCode. Review the PR.