Is Windsurf a better AI IDE than Cursor? Let's take a look. If you like Cursor's new agent mode that does not require you

to specify files for context and can generate and run commands for you, then you have to think that's Wind

Surfer's built-in agent that's been doing this first. Windsurf generally has a cleaner and simpler set of UIs that

just feel that next level more polished than Cursor's. Windsurf is also cheaper, starting at $15 a seat versus Cursor's

$20 a seat. Though I will say the pricing is a little bit more confusing with these things like model flow, action

credits, whatever the heck that means. Both IDEs support the standard features you'd expect, like AI-driven auto

completions, chatting with your code base, as well as generating and updating multiple files at a time, which you can

apply all with a click. Both IDEs support inline editing of code with AI as well. Both IDEs effectively have the

same brain, as they're using Claude 3.5 Sonnet for the hard stuff. I've noticed

that functionally I don't see a major difference in the quality of code or anything generated by either of these

IDEs, and I don't expect to. These are really just UIs on top of standard models. When people try to compare this

code, generated better than that one, it's my belief that they're mostly comparing the randomness of Claude outputs. Both do

use smaller models for the smaller edits and the inline completions, but I similarly didn't find a major difference

in the quality of one small model versus another. Overall, Windsurf really seems to push to be a very simple, easy-use

product that's beginner-friendly and pushes for high-level, simple interactions with your code. The default

Chat mode is the agentic mode; it indexes and pools relevant code as needed. It'll run commands for you and it won't

clutter the UI with buttons and code diffs everywhere. In fact, you won't see an inline diff at all; you need to click

the "Open Diff" button to see it in the full code pane. Whereas Cursor leans towards more manual control; the composer

mode always defaults to normal instead of Agent, which requires you to choose what files you want to put in the

context for it to generate. Cursor will always show you inline code diffs as well and seems to push the point that

you should always be reviewing this code. Every time, one thing that Windsurf does that I like a lot is, by default,

their AI generations are written to disk before you approve them. That means you'll see the results right inside your

dev server in real time, and you can use that to also see in real time if there are build errors in your dev server. If the

updates still aren't quite right, you can chat again to continue to modify before you accept the changes entirely. And if

you don't love the changes even after some iteration, you can discard everything in one go. Compare that to

Cursor, where you need to accept the changes before you can actually look at the UI and realize it looks terrible, and

now, in order to revert that, I need to scroll up and figure out where the chat started, which sometimes could be

midway through a long thread and hard to find, and then find the checkout button and hit that to revert to the prior state.

Overall, the workflow is just a little bit clunkier in that regard, and I think that's the case for Cursor's UI in

general. For instance, I didn't even know Cursor could go back in time because I just didn't find that button clear and

intuitive, but when I hover over Windsurf, I get this nice little revert back to top button. Those little details do

really make Windsurf feel a little bit more polished and refined. Feels a little bit like using an Apple product versus a

Microsoft product. Where Cursor really shines is in a lot of its power features. For instance, Cursor supports multi-

tabbing. So if it sees you make a change that would benefit from another change later in the code, you can just hit Tab

and Tab again to keep applying those new changes. I find this simultaneously very cool, as well as often sometimes kind of

clunky and confusing, like how this code didn't actually complete into the right spot. Cursor generally takes a kitchen

sink approach to AI in the IDE. Everything has an AI button. See an error? There's a "fix with AI" button. Drop down

to options over here; there's a "fix with AI" button. Error in the terminal? There's a "debug with AI" button. Clicking these

generally opens the chat and lets you go back and forth with the AI to fix the issue. I find these useful, but also

sometimes they add clutter to the UI. For instance, I've had cases where these overlays are annoying and in the way, and

I can't dismiss them when I need to. Also, one thing that drives me crazy is Cursor hijacks Command-K in the terminal, which

means I can't use it to clear the terminal. I also spent too long asking ChatGPT how else I could clear the

terminal without that shortcut, and I didn't find one that exactly matches the behavior I'm used to. I also didn't find

a way in Cursor to override that and turn that off. Now that said, having AI in the terminal that's Command-K or at any point

is really helpful if you're like me and just always forgetting the exact command names and arguments that I want.

especially for commands I don't use super often, but I definitely need both IDEs. Let you specify custom rules to

inform completions, but Cursor support is a bit more robust and flexible, including the ability to add notepads you can

search for and include in your context as needed. Generally speaking, Cursor is way more robust at context management. Both IDEs let you tag certain files you

want to include in the context, but Cursor lets you add whole doc sets, like include the Tailwind docs, specific pages

from the web, specific Git branches and commits, or even just tagging a web search to fill in context to

try and fix the bug. One other really cool feature of Cursor is automatically generated commit messages with one simple click. Even better, it respects

preferences you put in your Cursor rules. So whereas I found the default output a bit verbose for both, I said for commit messages,

keep it a little shorter, and hey, it's doing pretty great and saving me time. Another cool experimental feature of

Cursor is this new bugfinder. Where, after an aggressive error message and a usage-based pricing model where you pay a

dollar or more just to click a button, it'll scan through all the code and your working changes, as well as if you're on

a feature branch, comparing that to main and look for possible bugs in the code. For me, it's actually found some really

useful bugs and saved me time having to find them and fix them. Any bug it finds, it gives a confidence rating as well as

an overview, and you can just click a button to fix it. In Composer, it'll fill the details into the prompts and

generate updates like you're used to. The main thing I wish both products had was an even more robust debugging loop,

something like Devon promises and sometimes can achieve, but right here in the IDE. Both say they have agents, but

I'm used to the idea of an agent being something that can try something, evaluate it, and repeat until it verifies

that the result is correct. Which neither of them actually do; they generate code, and if you've got bugs, it's your

responsibility to go in and fix them and make sure they get fixed. Now, luckily, unlike the Zed editor, Windsurf and

Cursor both support all VS Code extensions because they're both just forks of VS Code. So we can just download

an extension like Klein and tell it to fix the errors in this file. Klein will then get to work making a series of

updates and, most importantly, actually verifying that it fixed everything. If it finds new issues after the fix, it'll

automatically go in and fix that until it verifies everything's completed, everything works as expected. And it works great with both Cursor and Wind

Surf. Speaking of compatibility with other tools, let's export this Figma design to code.  I'll just

copy this command and paste it into the Windsurf terminal. I'll tell it to add a button to launch this on the homepage,

and here it'll generate the code that I wanted. Both IDEs support full terminal functionality like syntax highlighting,

and now I have my beautiful UI, pixel-perfect and using my components as expected. And now I can hop into Cascade

or Cursor Composer and tell it to hook up the signup form to my auth logic. This is the end-to-end workflow I typically

use: grab the design, have the agent add the logic, make my updates, autogenerate a commit message, and fire up a PR. Honestly,

I don't think you can go wrong with either of these options. Both are fantastic IDEs that support AI-driven

autocompletion, inline editing, multi-file editing, chatting with your codebase, and lentic workflows where they can read and write to multiple files based

on what you said, and while I find Windsurf to be a little simpler, a little more intuitive, and a slightly nicer

and more polished UI, Cursor is just loaded with powerful features. And while all those buttons everywhere can add clutter, I

find it hard to let go of some of these features that I just love. I love typing Command K in my terminal to generate

commands when I forget what I need. I even love sometimes using the multi-typing when it works. And while I'll

suffer through some glitches in the UI for a professional development tool, it's my personal preference. For a more

beginner developer, or someone who really prefers UI polish, Windsurf is probably a better go-to. It also has a lower

starting point, and if you're coming off a tool like Bolt, Windsurf will feel a lot more like what you're used to.

But hey, that's just my opinion. To read my full in-depth review of both tools, head on over to my latest blog post in

the Builder.io blog. You'll find other reviews and rankings of AI tools over there. But most importantly, what do you

think? What is your favorite AI IDE? If you've got opinions here, you should check out the State of AI survey that

just went live. You can vote on your favorite IDEs, co-pilots, chat tools, and a whole bunch of others. Jump in there

and let us all know what AI tools you think are best at the State of AI tools. Oh yeah, one last thing: let me know in the

comments what tool I should review next. See you

Windsurf vs Cursor: which is the better AI code editor?

Windsurf vs Cursor: which is the better AI code editor?

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