Windsurf review (2026): Codeium's IDE play after the rebrand

We tried Windsurf for two months earlier this year to assess whether it should replace our Cursor seat. Verdict: capable, but didn’t displace habit.

What it does well

Cascade (the agent)

Cascade is Windsurf’s agentic feature, point it at a task, it works across files. Comparable to Cursor Composer and Claude Code’s agentic mode. The execution is clean.

The differentiator: Cascade feels more “trust me, I’ll handle it” by default. It surfaces fewer mid-task confirmations than Cursor Composer. Good if you trust the model; jarring if you’re used to more granular approval.

Cross-file context awareness

Windsurf indexes your whole repo aggressively at startup. The result: the model is rarely surprised by what’s in your codebase. Suggestions tend to fit the existing patterns rather than introducing new ones.

This is genuinely a strength over Cursor in some workflows, especially in large codebases.

Pricing

Pro tier is around $15 USD ($23 AUD)/month vs Cursor’s $20 USD ($31 AUD). $8 AUD/month isn’t life-changing but adds up at team scale.

Free tier is more generous than Cursor’s, you can evaluate Windsurf seriously for a week or two without paying.

Where it falls short

Ecosystem

Cursor has more community-shared .cursorrules templates, more YouTube tutorials, more Discord activity. Windsurf’s community is smaller. If you like learning from peer examples, you’ll find less material.

MCP support

Both Windsurf and Cursor support MCP. Cursor’s implementation is slightly more polished in our experience, fewer cases where an MCP server “loads” but doesn’t quite work. Windsurf is catching up.

Model selection

By default Windsurf routes through their own “Cascade Base” model abstraction. You can pick specific underlying models (Claude, GPT) but it’s an extra click each time. Cursor exposes model picker more prominently.

Momentum

Cursor’s funding round in late 2025 + the platform’s ubiquity in dev Twitter mean it has clear momentum. Windsurf is a respectable second; that gap might widen.

What we run

We don’t currently subscribe to Windsurf. We tried it, found it competent but not better than Cursor for our specific workflow, and let the trial lapse.

Who Windsurf is for

• Developers cost-conscious about IDE tooling, saves $8 AUD/month vs Cursor
• Anyone who finds Cursor’s interface cluttered, Windsurf is slightly more spartan
• Large-codebase teams valuing aggressive cross-file context indexing

Who Windsurf isn’t for

• Anyone deeply invested in Cursor’s ecosystem (.cursorrules, prompts, plugins)
• Heavy agentic background workflow users, Claude Code still wins for that
• Teams wanting maximum hireability, more developers know Cursor than Windsurf

Bottom line

Windsurf is good. We could happily run it instead of Cursor. We don’t, because habit and ecosystem inertia favour Cursor, not because Windsurf is meaningfully worse.

Try the free tier for a week. If it feels right, it’s $8 AUD/month cheaper than Cursor. If it feels wrong, the answer is probably to use the same $23 AUD on a Claude Code top-up instead.