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

[@loquek]

Thanks for the comparison! Cursor docs and rules file have been really helpful whilst learning xstate - and the tab completion for predictive updates is a nice time save when it works for sure.

[@askjohngeorge]

Fantastic comparison. I love how Windsurf's workflow more closely aligns with my own preferred development processes.

[@twisterrjl]

they both use claude. you have no preferred development there. they. both. use. claude.

[@tbkswagg]

​@@twisterrjlYou are misunderstanding om purpose. Have you watched the video? The results are given by claude but the way they utilize code context and the way they autocomplete are different. Also the UI and features where you essentially build the prompt it gives in the background to claude are different. So the results will differ too. Have some sense oh my god.

[@FoXcodeZ]

The "Windsurf Early Adopter" Price is $10 per month (instead of the regular $15). For people like me, who have been using Windsurf since the beginning, this is a fantastic deal.

[@KlasicJay-gj1tg]

same here

[@paulmcpazzi]

2:21 I’m not sure which version of Cursor you’re using, but in my version to the right of "Completed" there are three buttons: "Save all", "Reject all" and "Accept all.” By clicking "Save all", you can save the changes to disk without accepting them, similar to Windsurf.

[@pedrovitur9350]

what's your version bro?

[@desertpillar5286]

I came here to say this :) I've been using Cursor since version 0.01 (or whatever the first version was called :) )

[@jortor2932]

Love u dude for your clear cut real videos

[@jerrynkongolo]

I use windsurf for iOS coding I can confirm you can view the changes before you can accept or reject the suggested codes. I personally like windsurf because cascade is way intelligent

[@bramburn]

❤ I think the author of the video is biased. I've been using cursor for months and I've moved to windsurf. Wayyy better and even their cascade base model is good.

[@nro337]

Great overview and quality depth here, thanks!

[@francoiscoetzee9452]

Thanks for the concise comparison.

[@YaronLavi]

Couldn't have said it better myself. very nice video!

[@KirkSutton]

"cursor supports multi-tabbing." windsurf has a feature called supercomplete which does this pretty well.

[@youcef_]

control + L clears the terminal! (yes, the actual "control^" button on mac)

[@jonbikaku6133]

Cant believe gpt couldnt tell him either 😅

[@mccall7122]

You are 100% wrong about one major thing: You don't need to Accept changes in Cursor before you see them in the UI. Cursor has "Accept changes" and "Save changes". Saving stores the changes to disk without accepting them, which enables you to see changes before accepting.

[@fahadus]

Did not know that. Thank you!

[@shay5338]

Yes like i Have the letest version and I have those button

[@abujessica]

just knew that from you thank you

[@tbkswagg]

damn I wanted to try out the other one just for this one. Didn't know it worked like that sadly the auto addition for me was always buggy and clunky so I used copy paste.

[@abujessica]

@@tbkswagg it should work fine in latest update also cursor's normal composer is way better and much more capable of holding context that windsurf from what I understand, windsurf's agentic capabilities would analyze a file and then extract only important parts of the file for the assigned tasks, which would require you to tell the AI continuously it should analyze that file for context cursor just includes entire file in the context

[@el-genio]

Windsurf is more pleasure to use and it works better at deeply searching through your codebase. But the one major issue - it’s too creative sometimes making changes I haven’t requested - and you will find this out when it completely messes things up

[@sentinel-q6j]

I know as well that's why the first prompt is don't remove anything at all and GitHub app to see where changes are made

[@monkishrex]

That's Claude. You can ask it to focus on one change at a time with your prompts

[@el-genio]

@ nope, they use claude to do tasks, the orchestration is made by their own LLM. You can simply check it by asking some ‘not very ethical stuff’. Cursor’s or Vanilla Claude will refuse. Windsurf will do this with no problem

[@GKuul]

I think Cursor also has a revert feature. If you adjust your context and submit, it will ask if you want to revert the conversation.

[@NazzarenoGiannelliCG]

I was waiting for this! For the time being Windsurf is more in line with my needs. I loved the Cline addition in the mix. I will definitely try it out!

[@nufh]

Windsurf credits drain really quickly, requiring you to top them up. Unlike Cursor, which you can continue using, albeit a bit slower.

[@tbkswagg]

yes the weird wording of the pricing there didn't really give me much confidence. From your experience on a daily usage how fast would a premium run out? I never had to pay or never drained a cursor limit from the 20 bucks premium sub

[@nufh]

@@tbkswagg They have 1,000 credits for execution outputs, like making edits or similar tasks, and 500 credits for prompt inputs. Prompt input is the main concern as it runs out really, really fast. When you interact with the LLM, every input is counted-whether it’s "please edit," "please scan," or even a simple "yes." Sometimes, debugging or redoing tasks also consumes credits. If you use an average of 50 credits daily, you’d only get about 10 days of usage. As an early adopter, it costs $10, but at the regular price of $15, it’s just not worth it.

[@tbkswagg]

@nufh Good to know, I'm currently messing with it and it seems buggy to me. I tried the generate project feature with a prompt to create a react app with vite jotai effect-ts and chakra ui. Sadly it bugged out also didn't do the commands for some reason.

[@nufh]

@@tbkswagg The big selling point for Windsurf is its context awareness, but now Cursor also has agents. From my limited experience so far, it’s better to approach your project incrementally-starting small and building up gradually, with a well-planned project flow. Yes, I know, it can be quite a hassle.

[@balazssrancsik1691]

​@@nufhAgree, once you have an semi-ready code base. Better give Windsurf a smaller task to fix, rather than go through multiple file modifications. On the other hand if you work from scratch, first suggestions of Windsurf were surprisingly close to what I needed, sometimes gave enhancements I did it even think of.

[@dipbuys]

if windsurf had the fix with ai button, that would be sick. since windsurf feels better already. adding that button to it would smash

[@JoshuaKelley-p2h]

I think Cursor acquisition of SuperMaven is very important. Although Claude 3.6 is great, it is great because of its synthetic data (supposedly distilled from 3.5 opus). SuperMaven will become insane once this has this level of data.

[@acidhauss7018]

thanks a lot for all these videos, I always learn something new about Cursor! Apart from you I haven't really found any other content creators who share so me of these advanced tips, so please keep them coming. I'd love to see a video on the cursor rules stuff as I find a bit hit and miss. also is there any way to turn off the fix linting errors thing, I always find it such a pain

[@furlz]

‘clear’ will clear the terminal.

[@tbkswagg]

lmao had a chuckle there

[@leoingson]

Ctrl-L

[@carl999]

2:26 in cursor you can actually just save the changes before accepting them. its the same behaviour with the difference that the disk version doesnt get overwritten instantly

[@leotravel85]

Windsurf extensions use their own marketplace and therefore are subpar at best

[@zakariaabderrahmanesadelao3048]

Can you elaborate more please?

[@leotravel85]

@@zakariaabderrahmanesadelao3048Windsurf does not support the official Microsoft extensions marketplace, as stated in their official docs, so you are out of luck if you need something like WSL extension for remote development in Windows, for example.

[@dAnconiaMusic]

Could you give us an example of Yolo mode?

[@ArcanoIncantatore]

I don't agree with you that we have to "thank Cascade" for the Cursor Agent, because it came out literally 10 days later, so it was already in the works and they released it quickly to pair with Windsurf, or it wasn't such a big feature if they were able to make it in such a short time.

[@KirkSutton]

"I'm used to the idea of an agent being something that can try something, evaluate it, and repeat until it verified that the result is correct which neither of them do." Windsurf does this. I can have Cascade run my code or run tests and if the code doesn't compile, code has runtime errors, or tests fail, the AI will read the std console and std error to determine what is wrong, fix it, and rerun to verify.

[@zcmgyu]

Did Windsurf support "Tab Tab Tab", it's the main reason I switch from Copilot to Cursor AI

[@gambit1357]

I'd love to see a tutorial or vid about the Figma to Windsurf workflow

[@KirkSutton]

ditto

[@DarkHumor103]

This video is underrated!

[@metalsmineralsnewsco.2174]

Replit vs Cursor video would be great!

[@fricare]

I stopped using Replit, with their agent you get very quickly in to loops and your tokens run out am few hours.

[@gr8tbigtreehugger]

Excellent video!

[@boynet2]

why windsurf not adding the auto gen commit msg, its a must have

[@jitendravyas]

there is an option to add context in Windsurf now

[@brandonwinston]

I couldn’t resist going for Windsurf’s early bird $10/month pricing in addition to my cursor subscription. If I had to pay full $15 a month I would not have gotten both, would have rather added more cursor fast credits

[@srinivas.b]

How about gh copilot vs sourcegraph cody

[@CoCaptainJack]

@6:49 how did you automatically generate a commit message?

[@Briefklammer1]

I don’t get would I should do if I have to close and reopen vs code. The history is gone then?! How to handle this problem?

[@bruhmoment3731]

Very informative!

[@carltongordon]

you made this video a bit too early bro, Cursor's new update literally just addressed majority of your concerns in the new update

[@brianfoote4686]

so basically if you have the time to learn how to navigate cursor, its the superior option?

[@TheRicoco2011]

Is there a real gain vs Webstorm with Supermaven?

[@kubakazimierczak6646]

Wasn't supermaven acquired by cursor recently?

[@dmytrodev4631]

kick out Webstorm. Super slow IDE. I stopped my subscription from this month. AI bullshit from JetBrains or Copilot

[@mayowadan]

Cmd+I opens the inline prompt input for the terminal in windsurf

[@RohitSharma-uw2eh]

Why hindi audio track is not available

[@davefellows]

I've been playing around with both recently, still can't decide which I prefer. I like that Cursor is a bit more flexible with things like rules and also which models you want to use. The git integration is also quite nice as is the UX for debugging terminal errors. Windsurf, you only have the predefined models (unless I'm missing something). Windsurf seems to do a better job of structuring code across multiple files/modules (e.g. with Python projects) whereas Cursor seems to default to creating some new app in a single file. I think I can probably tweak this with Cursor's rules file though, need to play around with that. Oh, and being able to reference docs etc in Cursor is pretty neat. So far, I have a slight preference for Cursor but will see if that changes.

[@pedrovitur9350]

cursor is better go with me

[@ricko13]

I love windsurf ❤ and btw I only pay $10 cuz Im one of the early adopters

[@SterlingCobb]

What do you think about Zed? I really like how Zed handles AI

[@Steve8708]

@@SterlingCobb great for Vim mode users, way behind on AI features compared to the others

[@horhenani]

Aider is the OG!

[@NadimKabir-g6u]

Can you do a comparison between windsurf and cline?

[@gamedeveloper1000]

In the video you admin that it's the backend (Claude or whatever) that does all the work. Copilot give more choice as to which backend the dev want to use (GPT, CLaude and soon Gemini) so if it's just speed than you probably need to fork out $10 for Copilot to give you faster answers. If it's not speed than how can you explain that they all use Claude (and Copilot give other models as options).?

[@ShadowD2C]

Hi i really struggle with getting good looking apps, as Ive no experience in frontend, which of these can help with that?

[@SPM-r7i]

Good prompts

[@ShadowD2C]

@@SPM-r7i example?

[@SPM-r7i]

@@ShadowD2C Describe simply what you need ? You have an IA in front of you, or maybe use an IA to write the prompt you send to claude lmao

[@ShadowD2C]

@ that only works for primitive UIs, for any customisation it doesn’t work and varies greatly , youd know if you actually tried coding any app using them

[@SPM-r7i]

I see your point, but it's less about using them and more about knowing how to adapt it then ?

[@matthiasrau9289]

Thank you 🙏

[@tekestekidanu1982]

The latest Cursor saves to disk automatically in agent mode.

[@RoryDavidWatts]

I used Cursor, then Windsurf, now Cursor again. In the end, I found being forced to use an "Agent" as a mostly-good-sometimes-terrible experience. Sometimes, the code it changed was arbitrary and hidden and i'd only find out much later. I much prefer the level of precision I have with Cursor. These are obviously pretty small differences, but it's worth the small increase in price for me.

[@MrKraignos]

Using a versioning system like Git you'll find out immediately what changed

[@RoryDavidWatts]

@ of course, but the point is that you shouldn’t have to review each diff out of the suspicion that weird code has been inserted or deleted

[@MrKraignos]

Well maybe one day. For now I treat AI as a junior dev you pair program with. These tools are merely a wrapper around LLM for now, with some bells and whistles, should not expect more than that until a new breakthrough in language models. So yeah, always review their output, they aren't ready to be autonomous.

[@adelinomasioli]

Thanks man

[@costathoughts]

I would love to see this agents trying to find a bug in an OG Java 8 Legacy project :keke:

[@khantseithu]

vscode is catching up as well with copilot edits

[@itsMapleLeaf]

the unfortunate thing that kills Windsurf for me is the usage of Codium and the open source extension repository, which didn't have everything I needed. is there a way to change that? I tried looking and couldn't find a way last time

[@ArcanoIncantatore]

It's explained in their docs, which if I don't remember wrong is linked directly inside the extensions tab in Windsurf. It was the first thing I did when I tried it

[@saber8387]

Yes you can change the extension market place and change it to vsmarketplace instead of what they use. Is that what youre asking? If so then just chatgpt it i worked for me

[@itsMapleLeaf]

​@@saber8387 haha, there's a "by default, it uses X as a market place, change in settings" message that *definitely* wasn't there last I tried it. this might go better this time 😁

[@tptshepo]

In my experience you need both. When either one gets confused, I use the other one to solve the problem.

[@paz1359]

seems it has chatgpt 4o as well

[@PolinomPolynets]

Although I prefer windsurf. You can’t actually install all the extensions that vs ode supports. I was not able to make Microsoft DevContsiners and Kunerneties extensions. I’ve tried a lot but it still did not work.😢

[@magnusmoty]

Which one is better?

[@KirkSutton]

Windsurf does have AI in the terminal (ctrl + i)

[@BrentMalice]

i cancelled vscode just cuz they didn't have the docs or ezpz @. new cursor update keeps failing to apply edits and then wants to make a new component and transfer stuff over and delete the old one but then it cant do final step. windscribe missing docs but it hasn't broken yet

[@SipChai]

What about Github copilot?

[@Oo-d8q]

Cursor is for the people who know how to code. And windsurf is for the people who don’t.

[@pedrovitur9350]

not practical at all and the cursor well configured with documents etc was perfect, cursor is for those who know how to use it

[@bramburn]

Disagree completely. I knock out proper code with windsurf and I've reduced cursor use as it gave me rubbish for complex projects .

[@F0XH0UND007]

Funny I have had completely opposite results when programming on very large projects with cursor. Windsurf was trying to rewrite the program for me. Both models were Claude.​@@bramburn

[@0xCAFEF00D]

Cursor asked me what bindings I liked. I picked vim. Can't use jump lists like you would. Uninstalled. Haven't tried windsurf but cursor is for people who don't know how to type.

[@gtrguy17]

I’ve been coding over 10 years and I love windsurf!

[@sebastiancasal8589]

Anyone knows if the windsurf cuota is enough ?? because i saw that cursor is unlimited, you lost fast responses but you have unlimited slow with premium models

[@Juhait-tn7xd]

Windsurf is buggy, most of time it can't update the related code file, I end up change it my self😢

[@play365alltime]

I used all the 500 fast request at 15-20th each month, but after that I can still request and use that for auto generation. Windsurf, on the other hand, will require to pay more. So I switched back to the Cursor. Not to mention windsurf is very unstable and have a lot of UI bugs.

[@admiralrohan]

Windsurf has in-terminal AI, and Supercomplete for Cursor Tab.

[@pedrovitur9350]

cursor também

[@YogeshJadhav-f2n]

sir pls make one app like SUNO AI (lyrics, music, & vocals), with free API, or with Model if ready made models not available in free mode then (How to train our own model for this) Thanks

[@Ganesh2072]

Agree that both are same. Don’t fall for cheaper $15 Windsurf. Soon you will find u r out of credits and you will end up paying more than $20 Cursor. So, go with Cursor. Having said that, both tools are less than 2 months old. There is so much they can improve. Can’t wait for them/model to be more intelligent. How would it be to use o1 or even better o3 or upgrade of Claude 3.5 sonnet?

[@mikekindig5886]

As of Jan 2025, I was not successful getting Cursor to run in Ubuntu Linux after a lot of effort. Windsurf easily installed with a .deb file. There are drawbacks to Windsurf; you burn through 'Flow Action Credits' quickly in 'agentic' mode, and the 'Pro Ultimate' doesn't give you unlimited 'Flow Action Credits'. Also, Windsurf doesn't have the equivalent of a .cursorrules file.

[@kranefivem]

windsurf is trash, as a programmer i 10x prefer cursor's very smart ai autocompletion and context when completing my shit, windsurf just is extremly bad both are 100% when requesting output from a model Cursor is just better all around, they are all top tier, I've premium from both and used cline with sonnet for about $300 so i am talking from experience My advice is to use any ai, but you must write good prompts adn give plenty of context, if not, all ai's are trash, but cursor's autocomplete is just better

[@bamboo6044]

Isn't cline good enough or is there something cursor does better? I've only used cline so would like to know your thoughts

[@kranefivem]

@@bamboo6044 i use cursor because of its autocomplete, im not sure cline has one

[@leoingson]

Ctrl-L clears any terminal :)

[@indianappguy]

just paid for windsuft to realise they are not building context with my code

[@StonedApe420]

Windsurf is much better.

[@morneauh]

Cursor keep going after 500 fast request. Windsurf after 500 simply stop.

[@thebicycleman8062]

the BIGGEST annoying thing in windsurfer is that u CANT jus DRAG and DROP the code file direclty in chat to mention it - that is a HUGGEEEE intuitive natural workflow when u r workin fast - something cursor does amazingly - also the UI jus overall responsiveness of windsurfer feels SLOWER... like i dont what it is - but they r both using sonnet 3.5 jus the way the UI is designed in windsurfer has this slightly delayed laggin feedback that jus feels everythin is dragged back - where as Cursor u hit ENTER and STUFF IS HAPPENIN RIGTHA WAY! almos tlike that concept of first print in web development - not sure but i literally have a paid version of windsurfer and cursor - and even tho my Cursor ran out of fast credits i STILL USE IT and dont even wana use my windsurfer credits coz its jus NOT as responsive

[@rachidlajmi2826]

Windsurf is the best :)

[@paulmuriithi9195]

advanced debugging and running code to see if it works before presenting it to user is being built in to sonnet's coding tool. windsurf , cursor, bolt.new must also fast introduce these abilities. 2025 will see commercial coding assistants that are actually useful in normal office or home coding jobs. but as of now...meh

[@chrisder1814]

Hello

[@0xtz_]

if this dude said this is not good -> i cant say itis

[@hammeedabdo.82]

Please add arabic to audio track.

[@futureramatb2443]

Cursor's new update ruins everything. It literally gor dumber and I suppose due ti the increased user number. I will try windsurf and let y'all know how it goes.

[@TheTrainstation]

Cline is the smartest

[@Ahmed-d2o1t]

windsurf is 10$

[@DickerehikariDuck]

ws became trash nowadays

[@j1gm1]

Nah, I'd rather use my brain. thanks

[@rtpHarry]

AI still makes you use your brain plenty. If you can write code without looking things up in docs and stackoverflow and peoples blogs, then props to you. But I don't find AI makes things easy on me, they just take away a lot of the chores, and replace them with monitoring a drunken savant. I find it mostly satisfying when I use my brain to spot that it hallucinated something, or there is a better design pattern I could get it to use, or a more modern technique. It's better than that tense feeling of scrolling through documentation desperately looking for that one thing you need, and hoping that you can understand enough to combine different aspects into what you need.

[@j1gm1]

​@@rtpHarry really? you'd rather correct a "drunken idiot" over and over until it's right? Mate, you're a manager then not a dev 😅. If you don't understand the docs, that sounds like a skill issue, and asking an AI for help isn't gonna make it any better.

[@rtpHarry]

​@@j1gm1 haha no i said drunken savant. You can get wonders out of it, as long as it can focus on you. maybe it is a skill issue, but despite its annoyances, i've been more productive in the last year than the last ten.

[@Djolesabijacica]

Another smart ass who refuses to use AI

[@kilobak2297]

What about GH Copilot?