Windsurf vs Cursor vs Agent Mode in May 2025
Hot takes from a seasoned Windsurf user
My FOMO runs deep when it comes to AI tooling, so I decided to invest some time to try out Windsurf alternatives the last few weeks.
Look and Feel
I like Cursor’s default dark theme better than Windsurf’s. VScode’s default style isn't bad, but I like the way for the forks try to give their editors some visual personality with these types of changes.
Its hard to find where to select different models in your chat window in Cursor but nice they make this configurable for tab (with only 2 options though).
Windsurf does a really good job visually tying together all its features. Cursor definitely feels like a software engineer built the visual elements with a noticeable lack of polish.
If they wanted to encourage switching it would be nice if they all picked the same keyboard shortcuts for the same functionality but I'm not sure who will blink there first.
Speed
Cursor definitely feels faster than Windsurf in chat, I think its as much the speed they show GUI updates as anything, but user perception is real when it comes to speed.
Agent mode's painfully slow incremental scan animation makes it feel like an outdated snail compared to the other two, and the total time it takes to make edits (even to one file) is noticeably slower than Windsurf and Cursor making edits to many dozens of files in the time it takes Agent Mode to edit one.
Code Indexing
Default code indexing quality on Cursor feels slightly closer to Agent Mode than to Windsurf, but this only is an issue on larger more complex projects. Manually providing context yourself linking in relevant files feels really strange and frustrating after being on Windsurf for a few months where it seems to always just intuitively include the right context for the current edit or conversation.
All these tools struggle at a certain level of complexity and you will notice that line shifts from project to project.
Agent Mode asking you to hook up to an online code index feels like punting on this problem and deferring to another team rather than taking this aspect seriously. I really can’t imagine that this addition would improve performance that dramatically.
A good fast code index is the thing that transitions an AI-enabled editor from a toy prototyping and boilerplate generation tool to a truly professional tool. Microsoft risks not taking this aspect seriously at their own peril.
Onboarding
Onboarding is definitely smoother with Windsurf, it does a pretty good job exposing tools and features to you slowly and letting you discover them naturally on your own. I’d have been completely lost with Cursor as a new user if it wasn’t so similar to Windsurf.
Agent mode was fast to understand, but that’s mainly because the number of features it offers is still small comparatively.
Capabilities
Despite all their years in the tab completion business Copilot really doesn't offer an experience here that compares to the quality of either Cursor or Windsurf. As a former daily Copilot user as recently as 6 months ago its honestly still pretty close to what they launched with back in 2003 where it feels like the generated example came from the #1 Stack Overflow post rather than being generated relevant to the codebase I’m in.
Cursor seems to love to make a bunch of edits to comments or delete comments and pretend that will change the behavior, I have seen this strange pattern at least three different times. I've never seen Windsurf or Agent Mode make this mistake so its gotta be something tucked away in a system prompt or model somewhere.
Conclusion
Cursor and Windsurf are neck and neck matching each other feature for feature despite a rapid pace in development of new features from both. Windsurf currently has a small edge in its indexing and context building capabilities and its ability to pick up on developer intent.
Microsoft has its work cut out for it. Somehow owning the most popular editor along with the most popular AI coding tool has put them at a disadvantage against these two startups. It feels a lot like corporate politics and silos are getting in the way of doing what needs to happen to build a truly great experience.
I'll probably stick with Windsurf for now that $10/month early adopter pricing is hard to beat. If the much-rumored OpenAI purchase does end up kneecapping Windsurf in a way I can't stand (please don't only allow OpenAI models 🙏) its nice to know I have a good alternative to fall back to in Cursor while I wait for truly open source editors with locally running open models to catch up.