Cursor capitalizes on GitHub frustration, launches rival hosting platform

For as long as anyone can remember, GitHub has been the de facto code host preferred by a majority of developers. However, in recent times, the platform has struggled with widely reported outages and performance degradation and, as it drops the ball, Cursor is waiting to pick it up.

The AI startup, which is now officially a part of SpaceXAI, launched Origin this week — a new code hosting platform designed to do all of the things that developers typically use GitHub for: collaboratively work on codebases, browse and edit them, handle pull-requests (edits made by others asking to be added to the main codebase) and store them in repositories.

This seems like a natural next step for Cursor, whose primary focus up until this point has been selling automated web development services through its AI Code Editor. Cursor has also said that “agent native” features will soon be available for Origin, although hasn’t shared many details yet. The company also says it is building a wider “app ecosystem” to support broader coding efforts within Origin.

Interestingly enough, using Origin doesn’t require a user to stop using GitHub. Indeed, Origin is designed to allow developers to work alongside GitHub and pass code back and forth between the two in an interoperable manner.