Try our new research platform with insights from 80,000+ expert users

Cursor 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

Cursor
Ranking in AI Code Assistants
6th
Ranking in AI Software Development
6th
Average Rating
9.0
Reviews Sentiment
6.5
Number of Reviews
1
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
Windsurf
Ranking in AI Code Assistants
4th
Ranking in AI Software Development
4th
Average Rating
7.8
Reviews Sentiment
5.5
Number of Reviews
14
Ranking in other categories
IDE (2nd)
 

Mindshare comparison

As of March 2026, in the AI Code Assistants category, the mindshare of Cursor is 23.4%, down from 31.2% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Windsurf is 7.7%, down from 18.5% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
AI Code Assistants Mindshare Distribution
ProductMindshare (%)
Windsurf7.7%
Cursor23.4%
Other68.9%
AI Code Assistants
 

Featured Reviews

Rusira Sathnindu - PeerSpot reviewer
Automation Engineer at a tech services company with 1-10 employees
AI coding has accelerated our feature delivery and has transformed how our team builds services
I have been noticing recently that Cursor introduced their own model, which is pretty limited; it is very fast, but it is not smart. They might have to improve that, along with the agent selection methodology. When you select auto, you expect it to use the best agent possible and think of the money savings, but it does not always work as expected, sometimes providing bad code or code that has bugs. I think the auto mode selection can improve. Another concern is the pricing; we have been paying a lot for Cursor recently, which I feel has increased within the last few months, possibly due to our usage going up. We are paying an amount similar to a developer's salary for Cursor now. I believe all the needed improvements are primarily around the auto agent selection mode and pricing. If they could be more transparent about it, that would be appreciated. We only see the bill at the end of the month, and it is often a high amount, so transparency in the pricing would be very helpful for us as developers.
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

"Previously, tasks that would take weeks or months can now be completed within days because of these AI tools."
"Windsurf's best feature is that it is agentic."
"I have seen a return on investment with Windsurf because I have saved time and money and needed fewer resources since using it."
"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."
"As we're experimenting with different AI IDEs, Windsurf has positively impacted my organization by providing options."
"Windsurf has positively impacted my organization by increasing productivity, because during a one-week hackathon we were able to build a product from scratch that would have taken at least two to three weeks, making the time savings substantial."
"Windsurf has saved a lot of time, and productivity has gone up at least 200%."
"Windsurf has saved a lot of time, and productivity has gone up at least 200%."
 

Cons

"Another concern is the pricing; we have been paying a lot for Cursor recently, which I feel has increased within the last few months, possibly due to our usage going up."
"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."
"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."
"Windsurf should definitely improve on the retrieval coverage side and multi-agent side, which Cloud Code and others have."
"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."
"Since using Windsurf, I notice more errors, but we deliver approximately twice as fast."
"Windsurf is stable approximately 95% of the time, but there are occasional latency issues that occur."
"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."
"From an accuracy perspective, Windsurf sometimes hallucinates and deviates from the expected results."
report
Use our free recommendation engine to learn which AI Code Assistants solutions are best for your needs.
884,873 professionals have used our research since 2012.
 

Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Comms Service Provider
12%
Computer Software Company
11%
University
8%
Financial Services Firm
6%
Comms Service Provider
10%
Computer Software Company
10%
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

Ask a question
Earn 20 points
What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Windsurf?
I did not have to give any money for it, so it is fully free, which is the best. I did not incur setup costs.
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 Amazon Web Services (AWS), GitHub, Google and others in AI Code Assistants. Updated: March 2026.
884,873 professionals have used our research since 2012.