Windsurf
4.2Verified Jul 8, 2026
Agentic 'Cascade' flows in a polished IDE
Starting price
Free tier
Independent comparison
Windsurf vs Cursor
A side-by-side comparison using the same editorial records that power Comparly.ai's AI Coding Assistants rankings. Prices, ratings, verification dates and feature values below come from those shared records.
Cursor
4.6Verified Jul 8, 2026
The AI-first IDE that changed the category
Starting price
Free tier (Hobby)
Verdict
Cursor has the editorial-rating edge
Cursor currently scores 4.6 versus Windsurf at 4.2 in the shared AI Coding Assistants data. That makes Cursor the evidence-based default, but the fit notes and feature rows may still favor Windsurf for a specific workflow.
Choose Windsurf when: Developers who want a full AI-native IDE with unlimited autocomplete plus flexible access to multiple top-tier LLMs, and who are open to Devin's autonomous agent capabilities as Cognition integrates them post-acquisition.
Choose Cursor when: Individual developers and teams who want a dedicated AI-native code editor (rather than a plugin bolted onto an existing IDE) with fast agentic edits, multi-model choice, and a growing extension ecosystem.
Feature comparison
Shared criteria configured for AI Coding Assistants.
No structured feature fields are published for this category yet. Ratings, pricing and editorial evidence remain available below.
Pricing
Plan details reflect the latest recorded verification date for each tool.
| Plan | Price | Notes |
|---|---|---|
| Free | $0 | Light daily quota to code with agents, limited model availability, unlimited Tab completions and inline edits. |
| Pro | $20/mo | Increased usage quotas, full model access (OpenAI, Claude, Gemini), free use of the proprietary SWE-1.5 model, cloud agent sessions. |
| Max | $200/mo | Everything in Pro with significantly higher usage quotas. |
| Teams | $80/mo + $40/mo per seat | Unlimited team members, centralized billing and admin dashboard, priority support. |
| Enterprise | Custom | Dedicated account management, SAML/OIDC SSO, optional VPC deployment. |
| Plan | Price | Notes |
|---|---|---|
| Hobby | Free | No credit card required, limited Agent requests, limited Tab completions. |
| Individual | $20/mo | Extended Agent limits, frontier model access, MCPs/skills/hooks, cloud agents, usage-based Bugbot billing. |
| Teams | $40/user/mo | Centralized billing, internal tool marketplace, agentic code reviews, shared cloud-agent context, usage analytics, SAML/OIDC SSO. |
| Enterprise | Custom | Pooled usage, invoice/PO billing, SCIM, repo/model/MCP access controls, audit logs, priority support. |
Who each tool is for
Windsurf
- Who it's for
- Developers who want a full AI-native IDE with unlimited autocomplete plus flexible access to multiple top-tier LLMs, and who are open to Devin's autonomous agent capabilities as Cognition integrates them post-acquisition.
- Who it's not for
- Users wary of platform instability should be cautious, since Windsurf's 2026 rebrand/merge into Devin Desktop and its March 2026 pricing overhaul (credits to quotas) signal ongoing product and pricing change.
Cursor
- Who it's for
- Individual developers and teams who want a dedicated AI-native code editor (rather than a plugin bolted onto an existing IDE) with fast agentic edits, multi-model choice, and a growing extension ecosystem.
- Who it's not for
- Developers committed to staying in JetBrains or VS Code with a lightweight extension, rather than switching their primary editor, should look elsewhere, since Cursor requires adopting its own editor.
Pros and cons
Windsurf
Pros
- Unlimited Tab autocomplete and inline edits on every plan, including Free
- Access to multiple frontier models (GPT, Claude, Gemini) plus the proprietary SWE-1.5 model
- Cloud/background agent sessions for longer-running tasks
- Now backed by Cognition's Devin agent technology following the 2025 acquisition
Cons
- March 2026 pricing overhaul replaced credits with quotas, causing user confusion
- Pro price rose from $15 to $20/mo in the same overhaul
- Brand is being folded into "Devin Desktop," creating naming confusion for existing Windsurf users
Cursor
Pros
- Purpose-built AI-first code editor (VS Code fork) with best-in-class agent and Tab-completion UX
- Supports many frontier models interchangeably inside one editor
- Fast-growing plugin/MCP ecosystem for extensibility
- Bugbot automated code review add-on for catching issues pre-merge
Cons
- Usage-based Bugbot billing adds unpredictable extra cost on top of the subscription
- Teams/Enterprise pricing rises quickly for larger organizations
- Free Hobby tier is quite limited for daily professional use