When Cursor Pro suddenly became unavailable, I was honestly in trouble. I had built most of the Sato Farm landing page with Cursor doing the heavy lifting.
But after only a brief moment of staring helplessly at the sky, VS Code stepped in as the pinch hitter. It turned out to be far more capable than I expected—not flashy, but remarkably dependable. More like a seasoned homegrown player than a high-priced foreign import.
Working quietly behind the scenes was the free version of Claude AI. It helped me debug code, organize my writing, and even listened to my occasional complaints. I have to take my hat off to an AI that does all this without charging me a cent.
The only service I'm still paying for is Netlify, which handles hosting. That's the only place I'm opening my wallet. Everything else is as simple as dragging and dropping files to publish my website to the world. In other words, my farm's website is running on an almost entirely free lineup.
Now comes the interesting part.
Cursor Pro will be back soon. So what should I do?
It seems a shame to bench the "almost-free team" I've put together. But leaving Cursor idle makes no sense either—I've already paid for a full year's subscription. Tools are meant to be used. Otherwise, they're just gathering dust.
So the answer is simple: Cursor Pro needs a new assignment. Perhaps it can finally tackle my long-delayed blog migration, or help move the site to Cloudflare Pages. Either way, it deserves a job worthy of its abilities.
So here's my plan.
VS Code and Claude AI—the "almost-free duo"—will remain the main force behind the landing page. When Cursor returns, I'll give it a new mission. No rush. One step at a time.
Looking back, this detour turned out to be a blessing in disguise. It taught me not only how to use good tools, but also when to use each one. Sometimes, the long way around leads to the best lessons.
Now, I'd better go check on the rice fields.