The AI Tools That Got Replaced in 2026: Why Claude Code and Hermes Agent Killed Cursor, OpenClaw, and ChatGPT
Cursor, OpenClaw, ChatGPT, and Notebook LM are all out. Claude Code and Hermes Agent replaced them. Here's exactly why each tool got cut from the stack.
Cursor, OpenClaw, and ChatGPT Are Gone From This Stack — Here’s What Replaced Them
Claude Code has fully displaced Cursor, OpenClaw, and ChatGPT from at least one serious AI builder’s daily workflow — and the reasoning is specific enough to be worth examining. The stack in question: S-tier daily drivers are Claude Code, VS Code (as the Claude Code IDE), and Glydo (speech-to-text). Graduated out entirely: ChatGPT regular chat, OpenClaw, Cursor, Notebook LM, Whisper Flow, Poppy AI, and Anytten. The replacements aren’t one-to-one swaps — Claude Code and Hermes Agent absorbed the functionality of several tools simultaneously.
That’s the interesting part. This isn’t “tool A is better than tool B.” It’s “tool A made tools B, C, D, and E redundant.”
What You Get When You Collapse the Stack
The outcome isn’t just fewer subscriptions. It’s a tighter feedback loop between thinking and building.
When Cursor was the primary coding environment, you had a clear separation: Cursor for code, ChatGPT for general chat, OpenClaw for agent workflows, Whisper Flow for voice input. Each tool had its lane. Each tool also had its own context window, its own memory model, its own quirks about what it remembered between sessions.
Hire a contractor. Not another power tool.
Cursor, Bolt, Lovable, v0 are tools. You still run the project.
With Remy, the project runs itself.
Claude Code running inside VS Code collapses most of that. You get a terminal-based agent that can read your entire project directory, execute shell commands, write and edit files, and hold a persistent project context through a CLAUDE.md file. The chat interface isn’t separate from the coding environment — it’s the same session. That’s why ChatGPT regular chat became redundant: if you’re already in Claude Code for code, opening a separate browser tab for general questions is friction with no payoff.
OpenClaw’s replacement is more interesting. Hermes Agent — which runs on Telegram and wakes on demand — handles the “out and about” knowledge work that OpenClaw was covering. Instant cron jobs, accessible from a phone, no infrastructure setup required. The author’s framing: Hermes replaced OpenClaw not because it’s categorically superior, but because the use cases OpenClaw was serving are now covered by something that requires less setup overhead.
Cursor’s displacement is the one that will surprise people who’ve been using it as their primary AI coding environment. The argument isn’t that Cursor is bad — it’s that Claude Code running inside VS Code gives you the same IDE experience (file tree on the left, terminal at the bottom) without the abstraction layer Cursor adds on top. You can use Claude Code inside Cursor if you want. But if you’re already comfortable in VS Code, the Cursor wrapper stops being necessary.
What You Actually Need Before Making This Switch
Before you rip out Cursor and install Claude Code, be honest about a few things.
An Anthropic API key with credits. Claude Code bills against the API directly, not a flat subscription. Heavy usage adds up. If you’re used to a $20/month Cursor Pro subscription, your first week of intensive Claude Code use might cost more than that. Know your usage patterns before committing. You can also route Claude Code through Open Router’s free model tier to reduce costs significantly during the evaluation period.
VS Code installed. You can run Claude Code in any terminal, or use the desktop app, but the VS Code integration is where the experience is cleanest. Install the Claude Code extension from the VS Code marketplace, or just run claude in the VS Code integrated terminal.
A project directory worth working in. Claude Code’s value compounds when it has context. A bare directory with two files gives it nothing to work with. If you’re migrating from Cursor, bring your existing project. The CLAUDE.md file you’ll create is where you store persistent instructions — your coding preferences, project architecture notes, things Claude should always know.
Realistic expectations about the transition dip. There’s a real 20% productivity drop when you switch tools. Your Cursor muscle memory — keyboard shortcuts, where things live, how to trigger completions — doesn’t transfer. Budget a week where you’re slower than usual. The question isn’t whether the dip happens (it will), but whether the new ceiling is higher than the old one.
How to Actually Make the Switch
Step 1: Install Claude Code and set up your first project.
Run npm install -g @anthropic-ai/claude-code (or follow the official Claude Code docs). Set your ANTHROPIC_API_KEY environment variable. Navigate to your project directory and run claude. You now have a running Claude Code session inside your terminal.
Coding agents automate the 5%. Remy runs the 95%.
The bottleneck was never typing the code. It was knowing what to build.
Create a CLAUDE.md file in your project root. This is your persistent context — write down your stack, your conventions, anything you’d tell a new developer joining the project. Claude Code reads this at the start of every session. This is the equivalent of Cursor’s project-level rules, but it’s a plain markdown file that lives in your repo and works with every other agent that can read a directory.
Step 2: Run Claude Code inside VS Code instead of a standalone terminal.
Open VS Code. Open the integrated terminal (Ctrl+\`` or Cmd+`). Run claude` from there. Now you have your file tree on the left, your code in the center, and Claude Code in the terminal at the bottom. This is the full setup — no additional configuration needed. The Claude Code extension gives you additional UI affordances if you want them, but the terminal workflow is sufficient.
You now have a Claude Code session with full access to your project files, running inside the same IDE you were using with Cursor.
Step 3: Replace your ChatGPT general chat habit.
This one is behavioral, not technical. When you reach for a browser tab to ask ChatGPT something, ask it in Claude Code instead. The model quality is comparable or better for most tasks, and you get the added benefit of Claude having your project context. After a week, you’ll notice you’ve stopped opening ChatGPT entirely. The habit breaks faster than you’d expect.
Step 4: Evaluate Hermes Agent for mobile and async work.
If you were using OpenClaw for agent workflows, Hermes Agent is the direct comparison to test. It runs on Telegram, which means you can trigger it from your phone. It supports instant cron jobs without a full infrastructure setup. The comparison to make: for the specific workflows you were running in OpenClaw, does Hermes handle them with less setup friction? If yes, that’s your answer. If no, keep OpenClaw for those specific cases — the goal is a leaner stack, not a complete purge.
For teams building more complex agent orchestration, MindStudio’s visual builder handles multi-agent chaining across 200+ models and 1,000+ integrations — useful when your workflow needs to connect Claude to external business tools without writing the orchestration code yourself.
Step 5: Replace Whisper Flow with Glydo.
Glydo is a speech-to-text startup that the author describes as the fastest on the market, with a privacy-first approach and Windows support rolling out. If you’re using voice input in your workflow, this is the direct swap. The transition is straightforward — it’s a different app doing the same job, but faster and with better privacy characteristics.
You now have the full replacement stack running: Claude Code + VS Code + Glydo as daily drivers, Hermes Agent for async and mobile work.
Step 6: Audit what you’re still paying for.
List every tool you’re currently subscribed to. For each one, ask: does Claude Code or Hermes Agent cover this use case? Notebook LM is a good example — the features people actually use (summarization, Q&A over documents) are reproducible inside Claude Code with a well-structured CLAUDE.md and the right prompts. Poppy AI’s functionality can be replicated with custom Claude Code scripts. The question isn’t “is this tool good?” — it’s “am I paying for something I can now do inside my existing stack?”
The Failure Modes Worth Knowing About
You’ll miss Cursor’s inline completions at first. Claude Code is a conversational agent, not an autocomplete engine. If your workflow is heavily dependent on tab-to-complete suggestions as you type, Claude Code feels different. It’s not worse — it’s a different interaction model. You’re writing prompts and reviewing outputs rather than accepting inline suggestions. Some people adapt quickly; others find it a genuine workflow change that takes longer.
Claude Code’s API costs can spike on large refactors. When you ask Claude Code to touch many files in a single session, token usage climbs fast. Understanding Claude Code’s effort levels — low, medium, high, max — helps here. Use lower effort levels for exploratory tasks and reserve high/max for actual implementation. The Opus plan mode (using /model opus-plan) lets you plan with Opus and execute with Sonnet, which extends your session budget considerably.
Hermes Agent has a learning curve for cron setup. “Instant crons” sounds simple, but getting Hermes configured correctly for your specific workflows takes time. Don’t expect to drop OpenClaw and have Hermes running all your automations on day one. Give it a week of real use before evaluating.
The CLAUDE.md file needs maintenance. It’s not a set-and-forget artifact. As your project evolves, the instructions in CLAUDE.md go stale. Budget time to update it. A stale CLAUDE.md is worse than no CLAUDE.md because it actively misleads the agent.
Tool-agnostic directories require discipline. The architecture principle here — build directories that outlive any tool — only works if you actually keep your project structure clean and your CLAUDE.md current. OpenClaw, Hermes, Codex, and Claude Code can all work in the same directory. But if your directory is a mess, all of them will produce messy outputs. The tool switch doesn’t fix underlying project hygiene issues.
Where to Take This Further
The specialists in this stack — Apify for scraping, GPT Image 2 for image creation, Nano Banana 2 for image editing (used as a “Photoshop tool”), Fal.ai for image and video generation in agents, Open Router for model routing, HeyGen for avatars, ElevenLabs for voice cloning — these don’t get replaced by Claude Code. They’re task-specific tools that get called from within workflows. The architecture is: Claude Code or Hermes Agent as the orchestrator, specialists as the tools those agents call.
If you’re building production applications from the workflows you’re running in Claude Code, the abstraction question eventually comes up. Tools like Remy take a different approach: you write a spec — annotated markdown — and a complete full-stack application gets compiled from it, TypeScript backend, SQLite database, auth, deployment, all of it. The spec is the source of truth; the generated code is derived output. It’s a different layer of abstraction than Claude Code’s interactive agent model, but the underlying idea — that the source of truth should be human-readable and precise — is the same.
For the B-tier specialists, the decision framework applies cleanly: does this tool solve a pain point you have right now? If you’re not doing avatar videos, HeyGen stays off your radar. If you’re not building voice agents, ElevenLabs stays in the “know it exists” category. The GStack vs Superpowers vs Hermes comparison is worth reading if you’re trying to figure out which Claude Code framework fits your specific workflow — the choice between them isn’t obvious and depends heavily on what you’re building.
How Remy works. You talk. Remy ships.
The Codex comparison is worth watching. It’s in the A-tier here — used weekly, not daily — because its strengths complement Claude Code’s weaknesses. Running both in the same directory, on the same project, is a legitimate strategy. Keeping Claude Code running 24/7 becomes relevant once you’re using it as a primary operating environment rather than a tool you open occasionally.
The tools that got graduated — ChatGPT, Cursor, OpenClaw, Notebook LM, Whisper Flow — aren’t gone because they failed. They’re gone because the stack above them got good enough to absorb their use cases. That’s a different kind of obsolescence, and it’s the kind that tends to be permanent.
