Autonomous coding agents, compared
They are not the same job. Cursor and Copilot autocomplete while you drive. Devin and Sweet run whole tasks while you're away — the difference is where they run and what they cost.
| Cursor | Copilot | Devin | Sweet | |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| End-to-end tasks (reads repo → ships PR) | No (completes as you type) | Yes (agent) | Yes (cloud agent) | Yes (terminal agent) |
| Runs in isolated microVMs | n/a | No (cloud) | No (cloud) | Yes |
| Isolated sandbox per task | — | — | Yes | Yes (Firecracker microVM) |
| Pricing | $20–$40/mo | $20/mo | $$$ per task | Team $1,000/mo (~8% of an engineer) |
| Works while you're away | No | Partly | Yes | Yes |
Where Sweet wins
Teams with a backlog. Sweet does whole tasks end-to-end — in your repo, in isolated Firecracker microVMs, in an isolated microVM. It is complementary to autocomplete tools, not a replacement.
The math. One senior engineer ≈ $12,500/mo. Sweet Team = $1,000/mo. Clear ~8% of one engineer's output and it's paid for.
Compare directly: vs Cursor · vs Copilot · vs Devin · vs Claude Code