1 Sep 2026
Citation Bureau
Vol. I
No. 300
Software

What is Composer 2.5?

Composer 2.5 is Cursor’s proprietary agentic coding model, designed for long-horizon tasks and positioned as a cost-efficient alternative to frontier models like Opus 4.7 and GPT-5.5. It is positioned as a cost-efficient alternative to leading models like Opus 4.7 and GPT-5.5, with comparable performance at significantly lower cost.

Release history

  • May 2026 - Nathaniel Whittemore reported that Composer 2.5 scored 69.3% on Terminal Bench 2.0, just behind Opus 4.7.
  • May 2026 - On SweBench multilingual, Composer 2.5 scored comparable to Opus 4.7 (80.5%) and GPT-5.5 (77.8%), per Whittemore.
  • May 2026 - Whittemore noted that Composer 2.5 performed comparably to Opus 4.7 and GPT-5.5, slightly ahead on medium settings and slightly behind on extra high and max settings, but at 10 to 60x lower cost.
  • May 2026 - According to Whittemore, Cursor claims their model is 10x more efficient compared to similarly capable models.

In the discourse

Attributed discussion of Composer 2.5.

By the numbers

Cursor's Composer 2.5 scores 69.3% on Terminal Bench 2.0 and is comparable to Opus 4.7 (80.5%) and GPT-5.5 (77.8%) on SweBench multilingual.

“It scored 69.3% on Terminal Bench 2.0, which is just behind Opus 4.7 On SweBench multilingual, it scored comparable to both Opus 4.7 at 80.5% and GPT-5.5 at 77.8%.”
Nathaniel Whittemore · 20 May 2026
Company & tool watch

Cursor Composer 2.5 matched or approached Opus 4.7 and GPT 5.5 performance at 10 to 60x lower cost, making it a significant efficiency play for enterprise coding workloads.

“It performed at a very comparable level to Opus 4.7 and GPT 5.5, a little ahead of them on their medium settings and a little below them on extra high and max settings, but it did all that at 10 to 60x lower cost.”
Nathaniel Whittemore · 24 May 2026
By the numbers

Cursor Composer 2.5 achieved comparable performance to Opus 4.7 and GPT 5.5 at 10 to 60x lower cost.

“It performed at a very comparable level to Opus 4.7 and GPT 5.5, a little ahead of them on their medium settings and a little below them on extra high and max settings, but it did all that at 10 to 60x lower cost.”
Nathaniel Whittemore · 24 May 2026
Company & tool watch

Cursor's Composer 2.5 claims 10x efficiency over similarly capable models, a potential structural cost advantage in the AI coding market.

“That has led Cursor to claim that their model is 10x more efficient compared to similarly capable models.”
Nathaniel Whittemore · 20 May 2026
Citation Bureau · reference note, compiled from attributed expert discussion. Last updated 2026-08-17.