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Codespaces vs Windsurf comparison

 

Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive SummaryUpdated on Jan 25, 2026

Review summaries and opinions

We asked business professionals to review the solutions they use. Here are some excerpts of what they said:
 

Categories and Ranking

Codespaces
Ranking in IDE
1st
Average Rating
8.4
Reviews Sentiment
4.8
Number of Reviews
7
Ranking in other categories
Development Platforms (4th)
Windsurf
Ranking in IDE
2nd
Average Rating
7.8
Reviews Sentiment
5.5
Number of Reviews
14
Ranking in other categories
AI Code Assistants (3rd), AI Software Development (4th)
 

Mindshare comparison

As of March 2026, in the IDE category, the mindshare of Codespaces is 10.2%, down from 25.0% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Windsurf is 8.0%, down from 11.1% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
IDE Mindshare Distribution
ProductMindshare (%)
Codespaces10.2%
Windsurf8.0%
Other81.8%
IDE
 

Featured Reviews

Zishan Sayyed Yunus - PeerSpot reviewer
Assistant manager at Interactive avenues
Smooth workflow with deployment and validation efficiency
I think there should be a scheduler option if you want to run it, similar to Google Cloud, where you can specify how long you want to keep your scheduling active. If you want to use it as a server or for a temporary time duration, you should be able to schedule it so the server will be activated between specific durations and auto-deactivate to save costs. Sometimes, at the initial stages, there is a lack of instances. It takes more time to create the instance, but now it's much faster to activate your Codespaces and delete it. The earlier Git Codespaces billing setup on GitHub was much simpler. You could easily see how much credit you have, how much you have used, and your balance. Now they have changed it, and it's confusing to understand how much Codespaces time you have, how much you have used, and how much they are charging.
Rusira Sathnindu - PeerSpot reviewer
Automation Engineer at a tech services company with 1-10 employees
AI coding agent has boosted daily commits and now speeds up complex feature delivery
Even though Windsurf has a good understanding of the codebase, sometimes when you ask it to do a complex task, it may complete it in the first try but may need improvements. When you prompt it again repeatedly, after the sixth or seventh prompt, it may start performing poorly. That is one of the key things I have noticed—its performance is not very consistent with continued prompts. Additionally, it sometimes hallucinates things. Although this previously happened a lot, it has improved, and now these checkers and linter functions ensure the code it writes is correct, reducing those hallucinations, but the performance inconsistency is still something I have noticed. The UI is good as it is basically a Visual Studio fork, so it has a good user interface. Moreover, every Visual Studio integration works here, so all of those are good. One of the main issues is the agent hallucinating and the generations not being good; those are two main points.

Quotes from Members

We asked business professionals to review the solutions they use. Here are some excerpts of what they said:
 

Pros

"The integration with Visual Studio Code offers a good and fast user experience that feels like a local experience."
"The most valuable features of the solution are Copilot and Advanced Security."
"Codespaces' most valuable feature is the repository, which helps the developers to work together. Its data commands are also useful."
"The review functionality of the pull requests is very handy, as not only can you give comments, but you can also suggest replacements for sentences with different words."
"I prefer Codespaces because it gets activated in seconds and has all the pre-dependencies which any developer could need, such as Docker and Python."
"The product allows us to implement feature-related changes or improvements on time. Whenever I write a section of the code or create a new code, it automatically integrates with the former code."
"We see benefits from Codespaces in terms of onboarding new team members; it is very simple."
"The developer experience is consistent, and its pricing makes sense since it optimizes the resources."
"As we're experimenting with different AI IDEs, Windsurf has positively impacted my organization by providing options."
"Previously, the development was very slow, and after using Windsurf, my development speed increased by 70 to 80 percent."
"Windsurf has positively impacted my organization by improving our code quality and reducing our development time."
"Windsurf has saved a lot of time, and productivity has gone up at least 200%."
"As we're experimenting with different AI IDEs, Windsurf has positively impacted my organization by providing options."
"Windsurf has absolutely impacted my day-to-day work by making things faster, mainly through autocomplete."
"Windsurf has positively impacted my organization in that writing code is very fast and easy."
"Windsurf has created a personal impact on my productivity, allowing me to typically meet deadlines in one week instead of two."
 

Cons

"The main issue is related to state preservation on a disconnection. When I close the laptop and open it in a different place, the state of the environment disappears, and I need to rerun several commands."
"Sometimes it is just two or three hours a day where they are totally unreachable, and it might happen like five times a month."
"When I close the laptop and open it in a different place, the state of the environment disappears, and I need to rerun several commands. This context switch affects productivity."
"The technical support could respond faster."
"The product indicates incorrect statistics."
"We get merge conflict errors and need to resolve them."
"The earlier Git Codespaces billing setup on GitHub was much simpler. You could easily see how much credit you have, how much you have used, and your balance. Now they have changed it, and it's confusing to understand how much Codespaces time you have, how much you have used, and how much they are charging."
"Windsurf can be improved in several ways, such as enhancing response times and better handling of massive codebases when dealing with over 100K plus files, along with improved security controls."
"Windsurf should definitely improve on the retrieval coverage side and multi-agent side, which Cloud Code and others have."
"I chose 7 out of 10 because I've used Cursor as well, and sometimes I feel Cursor hallucinates less compared to Windsurf."
"Even though Windsurf has a good understanding of the codebase, sometimes when you ask it to do a complex task, it may complete it in the first try but may need improvements."
"Even though Windsurf has a good understanding of the codebase, sometimes when you ask it to do a complex task, it may complete it in the first try but may need improvements."
"Sometimes, Windsurf is not able to develop the feature that we want and hallucinates a lot."
"I feel that Windsurf can be improved, as sometimes it keeps giving the same answer again and again, which makes me feel stuck at those points in time, because it is giving the same answer in a loop."
"I would like to add that Windsurf is very good and fits well into my workflow, but I would prefer if the cascade agent of Windsurf could be a little better."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"From what I've seen, the solution doesn't seem like it's overly expensive for what you get."
"I am using the product’s free version."
Information not available
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Educational Organization
12%
Computer Software Company
12%
Financial Services Firm
11%
Manufacturing Company
8%
Comms Service Provider
10%
Computer Software Company
9%
Financial Services Firm
8%
Manufacturing Company
8%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
No data available
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business10
Midsize Enterprise3
Large Enterprise5
 

Questions from the Community

What do you like most about Codespaces?
The most valuable features of the solution are Copilot and Advanced Security.
What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Codespaces?
We found the price of Codespaces is acceptable for us.
What needs improvement with Codespaces?
I am not the best person regarding the negative sides of Codespaces. As I mentioned, our team provides different tools for developers, so we are not so deep in every tool. From time to time, we got...
What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Windsurf?
My experience with pricing, setup cost, and licensing was great as I usually use the free version, which has amazing features for tab completion and no significant limitations on context windows.
What needs improvement with Windsurf?
Windsurf can be improved in several ways, such as enhancing response times and better handling of massive codebases when dealing with over 100K plus files, along with improved security controls. AI...
What is your primary use case for Windsurf?
My main use case for Windsurf is writing code with AI solutions and refactoring existing code. A quick specific example of a task or project where I have used Windsurf for writing or refactoring co...
 

Comparisons

 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

Information Not Available
Dell, Anduril, MongoDB, Zillow, Atlassian
Find out what your peers are saying about Codespaces vs. Windsurf and other solutions. Updated: March 2026.
884,797 professionals have used our research since 2012.