Ask HN: Cursor vs. Windsurf?

by shrisukhanion 3/7/2025, 9:50 AMwith 11 comments

Do you use an AI IDE? Which one and why?

There’s a bunch of them at this point and it’s kinda hard to figure out one over another. Cursor and Windsurf seem like the leading players - curious what people like about one vs the other.

by OriginalMrPinkon 3/7/2025, 10:40 AM

It was Cursor six months ago, VC with Copilot three months ago, and currently it's Windsurf / Cursor. Copilot is lagging with features, it used to be Chat & Compose, now it's Agents and MCP stuff that's missing. But once it's in there, it just seems more robust and better integrated with everything imo.

by TiredOfLifeon 3/9/2025, 2:14 PM

IMHO best feature of these things is the autocomplete. And Windsurf has that feature for free including the Cursor like Tab Tab (supercomplete in Windsurf)

by ai_coder42on 3/7/2025, 4:08 PM

They're all playing a catchup game with each other on features. Some like GH Copilot is really falling behind as of right now. I use cursor because i like how things are set up makes sense to me.

My recommendation: Try both. I mean really give them a fair chance, atleast 2 weeks. and see which one you like. Happy coding!

by shrisukhanion 3/7/2025, 9:51 AM

I’m a happy Cursor user. Main reason is it just works great and was the first one I tried.

by senordevnycon 3/7/2025, 5:17 PM

I really wish there was something as good as Cursor for Jetbrains.

by gardenhedgeon 3/7/2025, 10:20 PM

I just use vs code and a AI chat like grok or deepseek

by surrTurron 3/7/2025, 10:27 AM

use windsurf (or codeium) if you want to put up with cringe hard limits on prompts etc.

imo cursor all the way