Chroma vs Cursor

Chroma and Cursor both appear on the Smoower Developer Ecosystem Index.

Chroma (rank #209) holds a modest lead over Cursor (rank #430) on the overall Smoower ecosystem score (49 vs 40). The gap of 9 points reflects composite signals across code, docs, community and reach.

On code quality (the state of repositories, tests, releases and polish), Chroma is ahead of Cursor. On education (docs, guides and learning material for developers), Chroma is clearly ahead of Cursor. On community (issue response, PR reviews and discussion health), Cursor is ahead of Chroma. On reach (how visible the ecosystem is beyond its own repos), Cursor is slightly ahead of Chroma. On momentum (release cadence and how fast the ecosystem moves), Cursor is clearly ahead of Chroma.

Chroma carries 30,602 GitHub stars across 29 public repos, with 6 repositories active in the last 90 days and 94 external contributors on record. Cursor shows 44,397 stars across 8 public repos, 5 active in the last 90 days and 41 external contributors.

Chroma is the stronger read for anyone weighting education. Cursor looks better where momentum is the deciding factor. The table below breaks the scores down pillar by pillar; the linked profiles cover the underlying repos, docs and community signals in full.