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Why is Cursor so much more popular than Windsurf?
My editor journey has been:
1. Tried out Github copilot in VS Code. Loved it.
2. Then tried out @Cursor after @bernatfortet kept talking about it. Immediately switch to Cursor.
3. Then tried out @Windsurf after @lagap discovered it. Immediately fell in love and switched.
Anecdotally, everyone is talking about Cursor. And no one is really talking about Windsurf. On Product Hunt, Cursor has 845 Shoutouts. Windsurf has two? In my experience, Windsurf is the leader at the moment with it's cascade/iterative prompting.
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Maybe because @VS Code is so popular it was easier for people to jump on the Cursor train? I know I was using Supermaven for a long time because I didn't want to re-learn keyboard shortcuts and/or have to set up a new editor. Also Cursor became the startup du jour so benefitted from a ton of earned media on Twitter/YouTube/etc.
I started using @The Windsurf Editor last week and agree it's 100x better than Cursor. Specifically:
- I trust it. It shows me why and how it's making changes. The trust comes from seeing everything as a diff instead of hoping the AI didn't delete anything it shouldn't have. It does the work but I have the control.
- It magically has the right amount of context to know how to do things the way the codebase already does things
- I was worried about re-learning keyboard shortcuts but I barely even have to use the IDE so that's been a non-issue
In short, I agree that Windsurf seems significantly better than Cursor.
@steveb Windsurf is a VS Code fork. So same onboarding as for Cursor. And situation of not needing to learn new shortcuts. Are you saying Cursor is more popular because Cursor was first? Looks like Windsurf launched in November 2024: https://codeium.com/blog/windsur...
@mikekerzhner I didn't know WS was a fork, good to know. And yes Cursor had months of "startup du jour" energy in every nook and cranny before WS launched.
@steveb I'm Matt from the Codeium team. Appreciate the kind words! Feel free to reach out if you ever want to chat WS or need any assistance. My twitter is @mattbergland
I think @bernatfortet hit it spot on. I downloaded and tried using Windsurf as soon as you recommended it @mikekerzhner but the onboarding wasn't as smooth and I was looking for all my shortcuts that I already felt familiar with on Cursor.
Maybe I'll give it another try over the weekend when I have more time to play. Any tips on how to co-work with WindSurf when it comes to code generation, reviewing, and documentation?
@gabe @The Windsurf Editor team should really perk up here. My onboarding journey with Windsurf:
1. Tried to import settings and extensions from Cursor since I was using Cursor at the time.
2. Extensions import silently failed.
3. I persevered and reinstalled extensions manually.
From there, Windsurf is faster to get going with than Cursor. Windsurf seems to be better at pulling in the right context. So just cmd + L (on a Mac) and ask your questions. Very similar to Cursor in that regard.
@gabe @mikekerzhner
Hey, Andy from the Windsurf team here 👋
Appreciate the feedback, we’ll look into these issues to understand why they happen and how we can make the onboarding experience here smoother. Thanks for being a Windsurf user!
Thanks @mikekerzhner! Will try Command I and L this weekend...and um... SO COOL @andyzg3 wasn't expecting y'all in the thread. Appreciate you looking into this and will report back after trying Windsurf for a bit!
I tried windsurf, and it was not a smooth onboarding. Things were missing, it didn't feel like home. When I installed cursor it felt like I had never switched at all.
Maybe it's a friction problem, I need to go over the hump of setting Windsurf up.
Maybe it's that cursor feels so good right now, that it's hard to imagine something better, and if I have to go through some hoops to try it out, then I need a bunch of faith.
@bernatfortet I felt the same when you recommended trying out Cursor. I was like: "Copilot is great, why should I use Windsurf." I also second that Windsurf onboarding was not nearly as smooth. I ended up just ditching a bunch of extensions instead of reinstalling those.
@bernatfortet Hey Bernat 👋 Andy from the Windsurf team here.
Sorry to hear that the onboarding experience was bumpy for you. I worked on the onboarding experience and I’d love to learn more about what was missing and what might’ve felt off. Could you share more here or Twitter DM @andyzg3?
@hussein_r Definitely give it a go. I've been been able to ship and maintain my app code base with it nicely. Using it with clause sonnet 3.5... the context awareness in chat is like magic👍
At this point I actually think windsurf is working on the right thing, you pairprogram with your AI. But I still use cursor, because Im fine doing the steps my self. The real differentiator isnt really the IDE anymore. its the model. And I use o1 api key. It costs me $20-$50 a day. But its like working with a senior dev vs a junior dev. I do think the future of codin IDE is going to be more like windsurf where you step together, but I think it needs to run entirely on something like DeepSeek. To lower costbut still be able to work with a premium level model. (senior dev quality code)
Firstly, Cursor has been around for much longer and has worked amazingly well since the release of Sonnet 3.5.
Windsurf was relatively unreliable compared to cursor in its initial days. Many cursor users tried Windsurf, were not very happy, went back to Cursor and never tried it again. Windsurf has improved a lot in the last 4-5 weeks, I think everyone should give it another chance.
As someone who uses @Windsurf as my daily driver, I think it deserves more love than it gets! The real magic to me is its ability to pull in the right context. When I used Cursor I had to do a lot of manual hand-holding to make sure the right files were included; Windsurf just figures out what it needs and includes it as context.
I’m mostly using Windsurf with a larger, more complicated codebase so finding the right context is pretty killer but maybe it would matter less for a small greenfield project?
i couldn't agree more. the memory functions and unlimited useful base model seems like a great differentiator, as long as they are useful. As i feel in love with windsurf, i created some rules to make them work even better, like the devin.cursorrules project floating around out there: https://github.com/davidryal/Rul...
I first tested Windsurf in December last year and was actually satisfied. Then someone said that Cursor would be the better choice, and I've been using Cursor ever since. I don't know why, but today I felt like trying Windsurf again and BAM! I bought the Ultimate package. I think Windsurf is somehow better. Let's see, Cursor subscription runs until the end of February, then we'll see which of the two I keep. At the moment it looks like Windsurf ;-)
@weasel1 What do you like more about Windsurf? What would make you keep it over Cursor?
Windsurf context awareness of project files and chat changed the game for me. I use it with the Claude sonnet 3.5 and the outputs are time saving when working with it. There is credit limits but I've never had that stopped my process so far.
I had looked into Cursor before but ended up starting with Codeium VS code extension which evolved into Windsurf. I hesitated to try it because the extension did so well for me already and let's face it learning something new isn't going to ship your product any faster but honestly, without Windsurf it would have taken alot longer to finish my app and that has solidified Windsurf as my goto for dev projects.
PS. Definitely did not reinstall my abandoned extensions from vscode either 😅... Too much work when you're trying to accomplish a goal.
Cursor has a certain first-mover advantage, and is also more customizable
The Windsurf experience is much smoother, but there seems to be occasional issues with the chain of thought, which I used to alternate and contrast
But now I'm using Trae because it's free for a limited time~
I used Cursor and was always bothered by it's arbitrary separation of composer view and chat view, and then when WindSurf showed up, it's solved it with agentic view and unified everything, exactly how I think it should be done. And I also noticed it picks up so much more detail like the currently selected cursor and line location, recent changes... The nicest implementation is the revert button, that will allow you revert to a specific prompt without git check-in. Makes so much more sense than Cursor composer's flimsy revert UX.
However no one has infinite time to check out new editor. There is always first mover advantage. I for the longest time (about 3 weeks) didn't try Windsurf while on Cursor. But once I started, the quality and UX difference is apparent to me. Windsurf maybe should do more messaging that will directly compare Cursor to Windsurf just like the Mac vs PC ads campaign. Once user know you are superior, you can turn the tides.