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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
6.5
Dify automation saves time and enhances productivity, despite unspecified metrics and no initial monetary investment.
Sentiment score
5.3
Windsurf enhances efficiency, reducing project time and staffing needs while increasing developer productivity and cost-effectiveness significantly.
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
6.0
Dify's customer service is praised for promptness, effective assistance, and impressive technical support with valued community involvement.
Sentiment score
6.1
Windsurf's customer service is good, with responsive communication and helpful documentation, despite email-based support being cumbersome for some.
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
5.0
Dify has high scalability potential, but experiences vary, especially in self-hosted setups with larger workloads.
Sentiment score
5.5
Windsurf effectively manages different workloads, supports scalability, enhances productivity, but faces challenges with very large projects.
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
8.3
Dify is stable and scalable, with users experiencing no significant outages, latency, crashes, or bugs in production.
Sentiment score
7.8
Windsurf is highly reliable and stable, with minor latency issues during complex tasks or longer sessions, according to users.
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.
Student at a university with 501-1,000 employees
 

Room For Improvement

Dify can improve by enhancing templates, documentation, features, UI, and offering motion graphics and diverse pricing strategies.
Windsurf needs better memory management, context handling, and tool integration to improve accuracy, speed, and user-friendliness.
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
When it is given a larger amount of data, it hallucinates a lot and gives syntactically correct but logically wrong code sometimes.
Software Development Engineering Testing at HighLevel
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
 

Setup Cost

Enterprise users praise Windsurf's affordable pricing, ease of use, and flexible licensing, enhancing productivity for startups and fast-paced teams.
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.
Student at a university with 501-1,000 employees
 

Valuable Features

Dify enables easy AI integration with model-agnostic tools, a visual workflow, and robust APIs for efficient automation.
Windsurf enhances productivity with Cascade AI integration, streamlining development through multitasking, code analysis, voice interactions, and real-time suggestions.
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
20th
Average Rating
8.6
Reviews Sentiment
6.1
Number of Reviews
6
Ranking in other categories
Low-Code Development Platforms (16th)
Windsurf
Ranking in AI Software Development
1st
Average Rating
8.0
Reviews Sentiment
5.5
Number of Reviews
36
Ranking in other categories
IDE (1st), AI Code Assistants (1st)
 

Mindshare comparison

As of May 2026, in the AI Software Development category, the mindshare of Dify is 0.5%. The mindshare of Windsurf is 1.0%, down from 23.8% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
AI Software Development Mindshare Distribution
ProductMindshare (%)
Windsurf1.0%
Dify0.5%
Other98.5%
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.
Yess Kumar - PeerSpot reviewer
SRE at a tech vendor with 5,001-10,000 employees
AI coding workflows have accelerated routine development and debugging while improving focus
Overall, Windsurf is a powerful tool, but one key area is the accuracy and consistency of suggestions. While it is very helpful, sometimes the generated code or fixes need manual validation, especially for complex or production-level logic. Another improvement would be better control over AI actions, especially in agent workflows like Cascade. More transparency and fine-grained control would help developers trust and use it more confidently in critical tasks. Performance can be improved slightly. One area for improvement is around context limits and memory handling. Sometimes when working on very large codebases or long sessions, the context can feel limited. Improving how it retains and prioritizes context would make suggestions even more accurate. Another area is documentation and onboarding guidance. Since Windsurf is a relatively new tool, having more structured documentation, best practices, and real-world examples would help teams adopt it faster. Additionally, enterprise-level controls could be enhanced, such as better security, audit logs, and usage tracking. One additional area for improvement is offline and limited connectivity support. Since Windsurf relies heavily on AI capabilities, having a more robust fallback or partial offline functionality would be useful in restricted environments. Another point is the customization of AI behavior. It would be great to have more control over how the AI responds, such as tuning it for specific coding standards, project styles, or team preferences. Additionally, integration with more developer tools and ecosystems could be expanded. While it already fits well into the workflow, deeper integrations with CI/CD pipelines, issue tracking, and monitoring tools would make it more powerful.
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Construction Company
22%
Computer Software Company
9%
Comms Service Provider
8%
Financial Services Firm
6%
Comms Service Provider
9%
Financial Services Firm
8%
Computer Software Company
8%
Outsourcing Company
8%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
No data available
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business21
Midsize Enterprise7
Large Enterprise14
 

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?
Adding more pre-built advanced templates, progressing from basic to advanced templates, will help new users onboard faster. People who are already using Dify can quickly pick the pre-built template...
What is your primary use case for Dify?
I am using Dify to automate some of my tasks, for example, sending emails to my clients, reaching out to new customers, and creating end-to-end automation for my clients. Recently, I helped one of ...
What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Windsurf?
Time saved is very evident. Because time has been saved, if I am completing a task in five days rather than ten days, I can pick another task in the remaining five days. The product team can now de...
What needs improvement with Windsurf?
Overall, Windsurf is a powerful tool, but one key area is the accuracy and consistency of suggestions. While it is very helpful, sometimes the generated code or fixes need manual validation, especi...
What is your primary use case for Windsurf?
I have been using Windsurf for a few months now, mainly as part of my development and productivity workflow. During this time, I explored its capabilities for code assistance, faster debugging, and...
 

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: April 2026.
894,738 professionals have used our research since 2012.