Cursor’s got competition. Meet Void, an open-source AI code editor that wants to dethrone Cursor AI.

Founded by twin brothers Andrew Pareles and Mathew Pareles, Void Editor aims to solve the privacy concerns inherent in closed-source AI editors. With Cursor AI, user data flows through Cursor’s back end with every prompt whereas with Void, models can be self-hosted using tools like Ollama.

For users who want to leverage models like Claude 3.5 Sonnet, ChatGPT, or Gemini via API, Void will also offer functionality to make LLM calls directly, rather than positioning themselves as a data middleman the way other AI editors have.

Like Cursor, Void Editor is a VS Code fork, and it also borrows from Cursor AI with features like Tab to autocomplete, Ctrl + K to edit inline selections, and Ctrl + L to chat. Even Void’s logo takes heavy inspiration from Cursor’s with a nearly pixel-perfect replication of its cuboid shape.

Void isn’t just an open-source Cursor clone though. Andrew Pareles has said that Void intends to build an extension marketplace. Upcoming third party integrations include codebase chat with Greptile, documentation search with DocSearch, and local hosting with Ollama.

When one of Cursor’s founders, Michael Truell, was asked why Cursor AI is an IDE instead of a plugin, he noted that Cursor’s Command + K and autocomplete features wouldn’t work if Cursor AI was a VS Code extension.

Andrew Pareles offered a similar response on why Void Editor forked VS Code instead of building a VS Code extension, highlighting the fact that VS Code extensions are often buggy or struggle to integrate naturally.

The previous startup of Andrew Pareles and Mathew Pareles, DeriveIt, is a NeetCode competitor that helps job seekers prepare for FAANG interviews. They built the entire platform from scratch and grew it to thousands of users before shifting their focus to Glass Devtools in 2024. The pivot Andrew Pareles and Mathew Pareles made from Glass to Void was likely spurred by Y Combinator. It’s also worth noting that another S24 Y Combinator startup, Melty, is building an open-source AI code editor too.

Void’s code is available on GitHub. The official install is still in the works though and likely won’t be launched for another week or two.