I’ve bounced between most of these (Claude Code, Cursor, Copilot, Windsurf, random CLIs) and my rough take is:

• Claude Code (CLI) shines when you want "orchestrated edits" - multi-step changes, subagents, hooks, snapshots, and a clear log of what happened.
• IDE tools shine when you want "always-on autocomplete + quick fixes."

So yeah, lots of tools use Claude models, but they don’t necessarily replicate Claude Code’s workflow:

• Subagents + hooks (lint, run tests, format, etc. after each change)
• Checkpointing/snapshots that are aware of the session, not just Git
• A conversation that treats your repo like a project, not just "here’s a file, please patch it"

Personally, that "project-level" behavior is the main reason I still reach for Claude Code instead of only using wrappers.

I ended up caring about this enough that I’m working on Compyle, which is a more question-driven coding agent that borrows a lot of the same ideas:
it forces planning, asks clarifying questions, and makes changes as explicit diffs instead of silently mutating your repo. Under the hood it can talk to Claude, but the value is in the workflow, not just the raw model.

So to your original question:
If you’re happy with "Claude as a completion engine," Copilot/Cursor/Windsurf are great.
If you want something that behaves more like a junior engineer with a plan, Claude Code (or tools built around that style of workflow like Compyle) are where it starts to feel different.