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.
5.8K views

Add a comment

Replies

Best
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?
Rashaan Thompson
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.
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