Therefore, your last question might be, is Corbin, which one would you choose when you develop your software, which is going to be different than what you expect?

Which one is better? Windsurf Editor or is it Cursor AI? I'm making the video, y'all. I'm making the video, chill out.

Chill out. I've been seeing the comments. There's been a ton of stuff on the internet talking about, oh, Windsurf is better.

Oh, Cursor AI is a thing of the past. Okay, okay, me go in today's video for my experience of building out a software company, which one I would go with if I had to choose between the two.

So right off the bat, Windsurf is the perfect example of why capitalism works.

I just realized that sounded like a very loaded comment. Let's just go and break it down by pricing and then go into functionality on the actual IDE itself.

IDE stands for integrated development environment. Another one is going to be VS Code. Starting off here with Cursor AI, now all the pricing I'm going to show in this video is going to be on the monthly, right?

If you do, I think the only thing I pay for annual is like Amazon Prime, but that's a different story. Their first pay tier is around 20 USD comparative to Windsurf, which is only 10.

But to be honest, let's forget about paid tier for right now and let's just go for free.

When using Cursor AI free tier, it's gone down tremendously. Now obviously, this probably has to do with scale. This probably has to do with the fact that there is a ton of new users, therefore they're deprecating features that they originally gave to the free tier, but man, you run out of credits fast and their low tier model of cursor small is no good.

I've used it personally multiple times and I just found myself realizing that the code outputs here are just like no bueno.

So therefore, free tier wise, you're going to opt for Windsurf just right off the bat.

I've noticed higher quality outputs using Windsurf Editor on the free tier. Now there's a huge caveat I'm going to say right now, look at the date of this video, look at the perks right there, tell me if they're different.

It isn't by chance that their first pay tier on Windsurf is 10 comparative to 20.

I mean, this is a clear shot at Cursor AI saying, hey, we're 50% cheaper, why wouldn't you just use us?

Therefore, giving me the feeling that long-term that's probably going to go up in pricing and maybe the free tier won't be as good as Windsurf's play right now is to get as much of the market as possible even if it hurts the revenue a little.

Regardless though, if they keep this price structuring and how the free tier currently operates, I mean, this is pretty solid.

Let's jump over to these IDEs and look at their actual user interface. I've gone ahead and just opened two random projects, one on Cursor, one on Windsurf.

Let's break it down. First major thing, the models we have access to, obviously on both, we have access to higher-level models like GPT-4, Claude 3.5 Sonet, and from Cursor AI.

Now, Cursor AI does provide other types of models such as 01 Mini and 01 Preview as an accessible feature, which could be useful if you really need to use that high-level model in coding.

But notice this now, this is specifically talking to people that are paying for free to here their smallest model, which is Cursor Small, which I've basically been opted to use because I am on the free tier and I've hit my credit limit.

From my experience, it's not as good as Cascada Base. I like Cascada Base better. I've just noticed better outputs with this, better code outputs, better everything.

That's just speaking to those people out there that are looking for the best free tier version of an IDE.

Knowing this, though, when looking at the actual chat itself, it's very similar when it comes to user interface. We have the ability to add images in both. We have the ability to add certain files.

We have the ability to select different models, like we discussed before. Not much of a difference there. Now one thing that I saw really shines of Cascada and Windsurf is its ability to handle terminal commands, specifically when creating React apps or just running terminal commands in general.

What I find with Cursor AI is more loops, more situations where I put in a simple prompt like create a React based app and find myself in dead ends.

Therefore, I'm not sure on the system Windsurf's using when structuring the artificial intelligence when we're accessing it in a chat-like method.

Whatever it is, it definitely seems to be better tailored for better code outputs. Another cool thing that Windsurf does that Cursor AI really doesn't do is our ability to differentiate between, hey, we want to mess with the actual codebase, EG, like, you know what, I want to mess with app.

I'm going to add it, let's do something comparative to just talking to it. So obviously Cursor AI, we could just talk to it and that's fine, but having that differentiation maybe is just user preference.

So, for example, when I have right selected here and I provide a file, we'll get code that is for the actual file itself.

Alternatively, when I have chat here, then we just can talk to it. We can ask questions, understand stuff, keep going.

That's user preference, though. If you find yourself where you need to talk to an AI model more, there you go.

Therefore, here's the baseline, and here's a huge caveat that I've been adding throughout this entire video, as it's still early days for Windsurf.

If they maintain the perks that they currently have for the free tier and the pricing for their first pay tier, then Windsurf just wins, but I don't really know if they're going to do that, as right now, it's obvious that they're just trying to co-op most of the market here for providing attractive prices and attractive value comparative to Cursor AI.

To be honest with you, Cursor AI might respond by either lowering prices or making their AI outputs better or giving more access to more credits on a free tier.

There's my synopsis between the two different platforms.

We're dealing with the same type of new AI IDE that we've been seeing these last couple of months/years. Therefore, your last question might be, is Corbin, which one would you choose when you develop your software, which is going to be different than what you expect?

Personally, when I create software, what I like to do is keep the AI and IDE separate. Therefore, I use something like VS code, and then when using VS code, I like to use a helper like ChatGBT.

Therefore, my underlying cost when developing could either be free with the free plan, or alternatively, just $20 a month when using Chad GBT.

Honestly, I might need to make a video breaking down why I like keeping it separate, but just as a quick synopsis for what I like to do and when I'm developing software, I use Chad GBT in more of the context of a little helper or an assistant, not necessarily like, hey, code out an entire file, but more in the sense of here's code, change it a little.

Do you think this is bad? Refactor this, etc. I find the workflow when dealing with VS Code and Chad GBT a lot faster as I'm able to separate the two, as I'm sure you're aware of, but when using something like Windsurf or Cursor AI, there is times where it starts changing files that you wouldn't want it to change, adding code that just seems extra and just not needed.

It's nice keeping it separate where you have the ultimate discretion whether to copy and paste it over or keep going.

That completes this video, so make sure you leave a like.

It's completely free. I'll leave an entire playlist at the end here showing you how to use Windsurf, also a bunch of other different stuff on this channel, how to create a front end, a back end.

We're talking hours of content for me personally, Corbin Brown.

I'll see you in the next video. Are you staying with Cursor AI? Are you like, no, no, no, no, I V this in, I go to Windsurf.

Now I'm a surfer with wind to random videos that's my face. I'll see you the next video.

Is Windsurf Editor Better Than Cursor AI?

My name is Corbin, an AI developer entrepreneur behind the vision of Webcafe AI. 

Together we will build digital ecosystems. ☕


Is Windsurf Editor Better Than Cursor AI?

Is Windsurf Editor Better Than Cursor AI?

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