Mike Kerzhner

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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Gonzague Dambricourt

I have been using Cursor for 5 months, tried Windsurf and had tons of errors with it .. that was super super annoying ( like this ) but loads of people seem to love it, and it seems that Cascade is great for Vibe Coding.


Also Windsurf's Wave 4 brings cool things that Cursor does not have:

  • Previews (so almost.. visual editing) and the capture of the browser's console errors which is great for front end

  • Tab to import (though Cursor's tab feature works super well)

  • Suggested Actions

  • MCP Discoverability with .. templates, so that helps a lot

Borey Washington
I tried both Cursor and Copilot and I prefer Copilot.
Mike Kerzhner
@borey_washington curios, why do you prefer Copilot?
Weasel
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 ;-)
steve beyatte
@weasel1 What do you like more about Windsurf? What would make you keep it over Cursor?
Prithvi Damera
Cursor is more popular than Windsurf due to its established, reliable interface, faster performance, and broader platform support. While Windsurf offers innovative AI implementations and competitive pricing, Cursor's familiarity and stability appeal to a wider audience.
Lucas Zen
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~
Nikhil Mishra

I have used both extensively. There was also a phase when I was switching between the two every week. Finally i settled down with cursor after they improved agents a lot and now that the performance of agents is really amazing - the way it fixes its own mistakes, rethinks about the approach in case it gets stuck, etc is amazing.

So now both feel at par so I am just sticking to cursor as there is no need to again switch back to windsurf.


Both are just amazing tools and it is really exiting to see who finds their broader audience where.

Flávio Pereira

Because it's stable, they listen to feedback, and have unlimited premium prompts on a subscription.

Rory Koehler

I'm using windsurf but thinking of trying https://lovable.dev/ on my next project

João Ferreira

Initially tried @Cursor , but ended up building most of my latest tool with @Windsurf . Started using Claude 3.5 Sonnet, then switching to 3.7 Sonnet in recent weeks.

Just launched the latest improvements using yesterday's Wave 4 update—much faster than before! Preview and Auto-Linter made iterating way easier