Quick Comparison Across Popular IDEs

Google Antigravity

Google’s agent-first development environment built on top of the Gemini ecosystem. It introduces autonomous multi-agent workflows, browser-level execution, and rich visual debugging through recordings and code diffs. 

VS Code

Microsoft’s battle-tested, open-source editor that continues to dominate the industry thanks to its massive extension marketplace, cross-platform reliability, and flexibility. While not inherently agent-first, its ecosystem makes it a powerful base for integrating AI tooling through plugins and third-party extensions.

Cursor

A VS Code fork, AI-native editor focused on deep language-model integration. Cursor brings intelligent code generation, refactoring, and inline assistance to the forefront, making it a popular choice for developers who want an AI-centric workflow without leaving the familiar VS Code environment.

My Hands-On Experience

I test drove Google Antigravity for myself by using it in one of my personal projects. I also used it in tandem with LazyGit, a TUI that runs entirely in the terminal, to see how it measures up in handling in-app terminal usage. While doing all of this, I tracked how much resources it was consuming on my work machine.

The results? With zero extensions installed, it consumed resources and performed roughly the same as Visual Studio Code, a conclusion which isn’t too far-fetched considering that it is essentially just a fork of it.

A nitpick of mine is that Google Antigravity is not as rich as Visual Studio Code in terms of the CLI. It lacks commands that I often use in my workflow, such as opening a new window, which is crucial for hopping between projects. Considering that it has just been released only a few days ago, I am hopeful that more features will come out for it to take the role as my daily driver for AI agentic development purposes.

Conclusion

Learning how to leverage AI tools such as Google Antigravity, Cursor, etc., and integrate them with your workflows is important in standing out as a developer or a builder in today’s software ecosystem. 

Google Antigravity is a great, exciting AI agent development project that is only one of the many to come along the road. While it is important to learn how each particular tool works and how it empowers specific parts of your skillset, what truly matters in the long run is having your fundamentals down (such as learning how to work with LLMs, managing AI agents, etc.), which is substantially more important for the longevity of your career. 

Would you use Google Antigravity? Are you already using a similar tool like Cursor and thinking of switching to a new field of grass with the hottest new addition to the world of AI agentic development?

References