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Cursor vs Retool comparison

 

Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive Summary

Review summaries and opinions

We asked business professionals to review the solutions they use. Here are some excerpts of what they said:
 

Categories and Ranking

Cursor
Ranking in AI Software Development
12th
Average Rating
9.0
Reviews Sentiment
6.5
Number of Reviews
1
Ranking in other categories
AI Code Assistants (6th)
Retool
Ranking in AI Software Development
11th
Average Rating
8.0
Reviews Sentiment
6.7
Number of Reviews
11
Ranking in other categories
Rapid Application Development Software (15th)
 

Mindshare comparison

As of April 2026, in the AI Software Development category, the mindshare of Cursor is 3.5%, down from 27.1% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Retool is 0.6%, up from 0.4% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
AI Software Development Mindshare Distribution
ProductMindshare (%)
Retool0.6%
Cursor3.5%
Other95.9%
AI Software Development
 

Featured Reviews

Rusira Sathnindu - PeerSpot reviewer
Automation Engineer at a tech services company with 1-10 employees
AI coding has accelerated our feature delivery and has transformed how our team builds services
I have been noticing recently that Cursor introduced their own model, which is pretty limited; it is very fast, but it is not smart. They might have to improve that, along with the agent selection methodology. When you select auto, you expect it to use the best agent possible and think of the money savings, but it does not always work as expected, sometimes providing bad code or code that has bugs. I think the auto mode selection can improve. Another concern is the pricing; we have been paying a lot for Cursor recently, which I feel has increased within the last few months, possibly due to our usage going up. We are paying an amount similar to a developer's salary for Cursor now. I believe all the needed improvements are primarily around the auto agent selection mode and pricing. If they could be more transparent about it, that would be appreciated. We only see the bill at the end of the month, and it is often a high amount, so transparency in the pricing would be very helpful for us as developers.
YL
IT consultant for healthcare sector at Freelancer
Has provided a quick way to build mobile apps and could improve usability for non-technical users
The best features Retool offers include the ability to quickly create a mobile app and use this mobile app in a native mobile app for Android. I found the process of creating and deploying those mobile apps for Android with Retool to be smooth as the documentation is very good, and I found answers and examples to create a mobile app. I can access a debug mode in the mobile app which was really convenient to make tests and find what can be improved, where I have a problem, and how to correct it. Retool positively impacted my organization as the proof of concept we built gave us a way to convince power users and key users before developing the real software. It was a way to maintain the launch date of the project, which helped speed up the project timeline and save resources.

Quotes from Members

We asked business professionals to review the solutions they use. Here are some excerpts of what they said:
 

Pros

"Previously, tasks that would take weeks or months can now be completed within days because of these AI tools."
"The stability is okay."
"Retool can be used with many applications as it is language independent; anyone can use it easily and create various visualizations regardless of their programming knowledge—this is the main reason I recommend it."
"Retool's most valuable features are its drag-and-drop components and the ability to customize them extensively."
"The most valuable feature of Retool is the workflow because I can integrate multiple features, such as RESTful API, JavaScript API, or different databases on the same dashboard."
"Retool positively impacts our organization by saving costs compared to using other data repositories, and teams prefer Retool for daily tasks that perform customizations to showcase web pages or link their data backend, making it more efficient and cost-effective than other software available in the market."
"Retool positively impacted my organization as the proof of concept we built gave us a way to convince power users and key users before developing the real software."
"Retool positively impacted my organization as the proof of concept we built gave us a way to convince power users and key users before developing the real software."
"With the help of Retool, we saved a lot of time; for instance, we made a similar project before that took two to three weeks to implement the same features, but with Retool, we could check our API right away very quickly, saving around twenty percent of our time and allowing us to visualize how our API works, see the drawbacks, and make changes to our FastAPI backend."
 

Cons

"Another concern is the pricing; we have been paying a lot for Cursor recently, which I feel has increased within the last few months, possibly due to our usage going up."
"There are restrictions on the front-end side."
"Retool, being a low-code/no-code platform, could improve by allowing users, particularly non-technical users, to use it more easily."
"The part where we can add some custom logic or custom plugins could be better."
"In the mobile app development, you have to use JavaScript to interact with components, and for non-technical users, it's already too technical, so Retool has to add some integrated solutions."
"Retool is more suited for startups, but it can get messy at scale."
"In the mobile app development, you have to use JavaScript to interact with components, and for non-technical users, it's already too technical, so Retool has to add some integrated solutions."
"The solution lacks inbuilt customization to customize bar charts."
"Retool could enhance support, including efforts to establish support centers in Europe, which was lacking previously. However, the community is still in the growth phase, leading to potential delays in receiving responses to queries."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

Information not available
"The pricing is very expensive. It costs for each user, for automated users, open-end users, et cetera."
"The tool is a little bit expensive."
"I don't know Retool's current pricing, but it cost around $12 per month earlier."
"For me, I'm in India right now, and we have Retool's subscription for one team member for $10 per month."
"For new users, evaluate the scale of their administrative needs as Retool provides excellent free services for smaller setups, but larger deployments might require transitioning to a paid plan."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Comms Service Provider
13%
Computer Software Company
11%
University
7%
Financial Services Firm
6%
Construction Company
22%
Comms Service Provider
11%
Manufacturing Company
10%
Outsourcing Company
8%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
No data available
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business5
Midsize Enterprise3
Large Enterprise4
 

Questions from the Community

What needs improvement with Cursor?
I have been noticing recently that Cursor introduced their own model, which is pretty limited; it is very fast, but it is not smart. They might have to improve that, along with the agent selection ...
What is your primary use case for Cursor?
My main use case for Cursor is building products for our company; we write all our code mainly in Cursor now. A quick specific example of a product I have built using Cursor is the maintenance of o...
What advice do you have for others considering Cursor?
My advice for others looking into using Cursor is that it is a really good code editor; you can use it for everything, but make sure to read the code it generates because otherwise, you will not kn...
What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Retool?
The pricing, setup cost, and licensing experience were good as the free plan was enough for us.
What needs improvement with Retool?
Retool, being a low-code/no-code platform, could improve by allowing users, particularly non-technical users, to use it more easily. In the mobile app development, you have to use JavaScript to int...
What is your primary use case for Retool?
My main use case for Retool involves an inventory app project. I built a mobile app to make an inventory of chemistry products. Retool helped me with that project as it was a good way to show a qui...
 

Comparisons

 

Overview

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