GitHub Copilot vs Cursor: which is safer for work?
GitHub Copilot and Cursor are close on the facts we could verify. The right choice comes down to the specific tier your team would use.
| Fact | GitHub Copilot Low risk · 17 GitHub (Microsoft) · Coding | Cursor Low risk · 17 Anysphere · Coding |
|---|---|---|
| Trains on consumer-tier data | Opt-out | Opt-out |
| SOC 2 Type II | Yes | Yes |
| ISO 27001 | Yes | Yes |
| GDPR DPA | Yes | Yes |
| HIPAA BAA | Unverified | Unverified |
| EU data residency | Unverified | Unverified |
| SSO / SAML | Yes | Yes |
| Data retention | Business/Enterprise: prompts and suggestions are not retained (transient); user engagement data kept ~24 months. Individual: prompts retained ~28 days for the code-completion service. | With Privacy Mode enabled, Cursor maintains Zero Data Retention (ZDR) agreements with inference subprocessors so prompts/completions are not retained; without Privacy Mode, code data may be stored to improve and train models (specific retention windows not published). |
Full profiles: GitHub Copilot · Cursor. Facts are sourced from each vendor's own policies; confirm the tier before relying on them.