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Dify vs Windsurf comparison

 

Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive Summary

Review summaries and opinions

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

ROI

Sentiment score
5.1
Dify's automation converted manual tasks to efficient operations, saving time and cost, and optimizing team performance significantly.
Sentiment score
5.0
Windsurf enhances productivity, reducing developer needs, boosting project speed, minimizing effort, and achieving significant cost savings and ROI.
If a task would require an hour, it can now be done in seconds.
Software Engineer at Futurescape Technologies
This results in cost saving and time saving, as whenever you save some time, that is equal to cost saving.
AI Consultant at AI Solution.dk
I have seen a return on investment so far, as Dify worked for me, but I do not have a metric to determine how much time it saved.
CTO at Queryhat
My clients save time and money, and we are generally about twice as fast with AI-enabled software development.
Principal Consultant at a outsourcing company with 1-10 employees
The scope of work has increased a lot, but we managed to keep up without hiring due to the power of these AI-powered coding agents like Windsurf and Cursor.
Automation Engineer at a tech services company with 1-10 employees
It has saved a substantial amount of time compared to previous methods, with a 25% time reduction in code generation and completion of projects.
Software Engineer at a university with 1,001-5,000 employees
 

Customer Service

Sentiment score
4.8
Dify's customer service earns high praise for quick responses, flexible support options, and strong user satisfaction.
Sentiment score
5.9
Windsurf's customer support is generally praised for responsiveness and effectiveness, despite occasional email delays, with excellent documentation resources.
I have been impressed by the voice agent, the feedback the team requests, and the developments they have implemented so far.
AI AUTOMATION ENGINEER at a consultancy with 51-200 employees
Whenever you have questions, you get an instant answer.
AI Consultant at AI Solution.dk
I already understood how to use user input, the LLM model, and templates without needing guides.
Student at Sector 125
Technical issues are handled very well when they arise.
Software Engineer at a university with 1,001-5,000 employees
I had an issue with billing, and the support team reached out to me about that issue quickly.
Full Stack Developer
I have not had to rely heavily on support for critical issues, which is a good sign in terms of product stability.
Software Enginner at Sera AI
 

Scalability Issues

Sentiment score
4.0
Dify is scalable but faces challenges with larger workloads and occasional issues, suggesting cloud scaling for improved performance.
Sentiment score
5.3
Windsurf scales efficiently with large workloads, supports teams well, integrates easily, and performs reliably in diverse environments.
Rather than using a cloud-hosted platform, using a self-hosted platform means there can be scalability issues.
Automation Engineer at a tech services company with 1-10 employees
Dify's scalability is good and it handles growth or increased workloads effectively, depending upon the resources available.
Software Engineer at Futurescape Technologies
I would need to consider cloud scaling, such as vertical and horizontal scaling as the number of users increases.
AI AUTOMATION ENGINEER at a consultancy with 51-200 employees
Windsurf can ensure that multiple users can work simultaneously on a single product.
AI Engineer at Walkover Web Solutions
For larger projects, it understands and operates across bigger repositories, helps maintain consistency when making changes across connected components, and reduces the effort needed to navigate and manage complexity.
Software Enginner at Sera AI
I believe it can handle growth effectively as our team expands or projects get bigger because it keeps the context of the codebase in a specialized, cached way.
Automation Engineer at a tech services company with 1-10 employees
 

Stability Issues

Sentiment score
7.9
Dify is praised for its stability, reliability, and scalability, despite AI effectiveness varying with model selection.
Sentiment score
7.5
Windsurf offers stable performance and reliability, despite infrequent latency and occasional issues with larger projects or API availability.
In terms of speed and reliability, for most tasks such as code generation and debugging, it is pretty fast and keeps the flow uninterrupted.
Software Enginner at Sera AI
Windsurf is currently stable for me; I have not experienced any crashes or issues.
Angular Developer at a computer retailer with 51-200 employees
I have not encountered any crashes or reliability issues.
Database developer at a university with 501-1,000 employees
 

Room For Improvement

Enhancing onboarding, workflow features, UI, and engagement, while optimizing performance, can significantly boost Dify's user experience and attractiveness.
Users want improved speed, debugging, accuracy, tool integration, documentation, language support, and better AI control in Windsurf.
For EU customers, adding more documentation about how Dify processes the data when starting to use Dify would be really beneficial for companies in Europe to get started with Dify.
AI Consultant at AI Solution.dk
We currently use OpenAI Agents SDK, which requires you to build everything by code, but the observability is really good.
Automation Engineer at a tech services company with 1-10 employees
The only improvement would be if Dify provided an SMTP server that could be connected to automate Dify workflow management, as that would be a great option.
Software Engineer at Futurescape Technologies
Enhancing the reliability of the cascade agent for large and complex codebases, ensuring it understands projects thoroughly, and providing safer multi-file edits would make Windsurf a significantly stronger tool.
Angular Developer at a computer retailer with 51-200 employees
Windsurf really shines when you treat it as a feature-level or system-level tool, not just something for autocomplete or small snippets.
Software Enginner at Sera AI
I would rather look for the inclusion of pull request reviews or a kind of a TRD or technical requirement general documentation generation, or system diagram generation directly from the codebase in Windsurf itself.
Founding BackEnd Engineer
 

Setup Cost

Enterprise buyers find Windsurf's pricing, setup, and licensing reasonable, with seamless implementation and competitive plan options enhancing productivity.
My experience with pricing, setup cost, and licensing is that it was free to use.
Automation Engineer at a tech services company with 1-10 employees
Dify is free to use and has a free license from GitHub under a Dify open-source license based on Apache 2.0.
Software Engineer at Futurescape Technologies
The experience with pricing is that it is quite reasonable.
AI Consultant at AI Solution.dk
It is very cheap compared to other tools in the market because 80% of the time, we are happy with their free model capabilities.
Founding BackEnd Engineer
If it were a bit less, it would be more useful for us to save money since we are a startup.
Software Engineer at Collecto Fintech Solutions Pvt Ltd
I did not incur setup costs.
Database developer at a university with 501-1,000 employees
 

Valuable Features

Dify enhances productivity and efficiency with seamless AI integration, user-friendly tools, and GDPR-compliant automation for organizations.
Windsurf enhances development with AI, automating tasks, boosting productivity, and enabling faster deployments with advanced integration.
Initially, we had about two weeks of time to implement the whole thing, but that was cut down to two days of time through using Dify.
Automation Engineer at a tech services company with 1-10 employees
Dify has positively impacted the organization because accuracy has been improved, and the time and complexity in flows that were manual are now automated.
Software Engineer at Futurescape Technologies
Dify stands out to me because it is compliant with GDPR, and it is 100% compliant with GDPR rules.
AI Consultant at AI Solution.dk
We were able to build a product from scratch, which would have taken at least two to three weeks. With Windsurf helping me build it in a week, the time savings are substantial.
Lead Software Engineer at a tech vendor with 10,001+ employees
Windsurf's understanding of my Angular project context is better than basic auto-complete and less IntelliSense options because it understands what version of Angular I am using and what features I require.
Angular Developer at a computer retailer with 51-200 employees
If there are any exceptions, it automatically finds out what the exact issue is and provides the solution and fixes it.
Software Engineer at Collecto Fintech Solutions Pvt Ltd
 

Categories and Ranking

Dify
Ranking in AI Software Development
16th
Average Rating
8.4
Reviews Sentiment
5.1
Number of Reviews
8
Ranking in other categories
Low-Code Development Platforms (17th)
Windsurf
Ranking in AI Software Development
1st
Average Rating
8.0
Reviews Sentiment
5.4
Number of Reviews
38
Ranking in other categories
IDE (1st), AI Code Assistants (1st)
 

Mindshare comparison

As of July 2026, in the AI Software Development category, the mindshare of Dify is 0.6%. The mindshare of Windsurf is 0.8%, down from 27.2% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
AI Software Development Mindshare Distribution
ProductMindshare (%)
Windsurf0.8%
Dify0.6%
Other98.6%
AI Software Development
 

Featured Reviews

Rusira Sathnindu - PeerSpot reviewer
Automation Engineer at a tech services company with 1-10 employees
Visual workflows have accelerated our agent POC while better UI and observability still need work
My personal experience with Dify's UI is that it is not my favorite, as it can be improved a little bit, and sometimes the UI feels a little bit buggy. I am not sure if that is because it was a self-hosted version. The documentation can also be improved a little bit more. I think not a lot of people are using Dify currently, so that is why the documentation is not very great. If the documentation was improved, that would also be a really good thing. Currently, Dify could improve by offering better observability like other platforms. We currently use OpenAI Agents SDK, which requires you to build everything by code, but the observability is really good. It has OpenAI Traces, and you can basically trace everything for a conversation. If Dify had that kind of tracing functionality, that would be great.
DHARMA-TEJA - PeerSpot reviewer
Software Enginner at Sera AI
Feature workflows have become faster and context-aware development is now system-focused
Windsurf has become less of a tool and more of a core part of how I build. I do not think in terms of writing code line by line anymore; I think in terms of features, flows, and systems, and Windsurf helped me translate that into actual implementation across the codebase. It fits especially well when I am doing rapid prototyping, exploring new ideas or architectures, or iterating on existing features quickly. At the same time, one thing I have noticed in my workflow is around model switching. When I switch between models, the GPT generating agent models sometimes the deeper context regarding decision reasoning or intermediate steps does not fully carry over, so I end up re-establishing context manually every time. It is so much painfully manual; that is not a blocker, but since I work on fairly complex multi-step systems, having strong cross-model memory consistency would make it even more powerful. One thing I would really appreciate is stronger cross-model memory and context continuity. Right now, when I switch between models, the surface-level context is there, but the deeper reasoning regarding why certain decisions were made or how a flow evolved does not always carry over fully. Since I work on complex and multi-step agents, I end up re-establishing the context manually. If Windsurf could maintain a kind of shared memory layer across models where intent, decisions, and intermediate steps persist, it would make the whole experience much more seamless. Improving the memory continuity and control would take it from powerful to extremely reliable at scale. Overall, Windsurf is already a strong tool, but there are a few areas where improvements would make a big difference, especially for advanced workflows. The first is cross-model memory and context continuity. The second is better control over agent execution. Right now, when switching between models—for instance, if I am using a tier of models and then I reach a limit, and then I need to switch to a lesser limit model—the high-level context is there, but deeper reasoning is lost. A shared memory layer across models would make the experience much more seamless. Furthermore, while Cascade is powerful, for larger changes, it would help to have more visibility or control, such as previewing the execution plan and guiding steps before it runs. The UI and documentation provided are pretty good, though I think there is room for true visibility and feedback during agent execution. While the amount of time put into the design and documentation is great, figuring out things with the documentation can often be done without any third-party help. Some advanced use cases are not fully explored in the documentation, but the best practices for using agents effectively are very clear, such as how to structure prompts for multi-file changes and how to guide Cascade for better outputs. Real-world advanced examples are already implemented in there; that could be very helpful for us. The main advice I would give to others looking into using Windsurf is to not use it as a traditional code assistant. Windsurf really shines when you treat it as a feature-level or system-level tool, not just something for autocomplete or small snippets. So instead of thinking "write this function," think more toward "build this flow." Learn how to guide it properly. That is the main thing I would advise: learn how to guide it properly, how to prompt it properly, and start with real use cases, not toy examples.
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Construction Company
20%
Manufacturing Company
10%
Comms Service Provider
8%
Computer Software Company
8%
Financial Services Firm
10%
Manufacturing Company
10%
Comms Service Provider
9%
Computer Software Company
8%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business5
Large Enterprise3
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business21
Midsize Enterprise8
Large Enterprise16
 

Questions from the Community

What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Dify?
The experience with pricing is that it is quite reasonable, and the setup cost depends on our usage, so I do not have any complaints regarding this.
What needs improvement with Dify?
I choose eight out of ten for Dify because there's always a way to improve it, but I feel that for the advanced features, it's still hard for hands-on use. I have a relatively limited experience wi...
What is your primary use case for Dify?
My main use case for Dify is to build a quick prototype about an interactive AI product to test the prompts and retrieval-augmented generation behavior, and I tested the workflow in that manner. I ...
What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Windsurf?
In our case, Windsurf's pricing and licensing were reasonable and straightforward to work with, so we did not face any major setup complexity and the process was smooth from a procurement standpoint.
What needs improvement with Windsurf?
The main improvements I would suggest for Windsurf are stronger context handling for bigger projects and a bit more control over the code it generates. This would make it even smoother and faster f...
What is your primary use case for Windsurf?
Our main use case for Windsurf is accelerating the development for all the client projects that we handle, especially when we are building websites, AI agents, and automations. For example, when we...
 

Comparisons

 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

Information Not Available
Dell, Anduril, MongoDB, Zillow, Atlassian
Find out what your peers are saying about Dify vs. Windsurf and other solutions. Updated: June 2026.
902,894 professionals have used our research since 2012.