Windsurf
Agentic IDE from the Codeium team — $15/mo with Cascade autonomous coding.
Acquired — still operating
acquired by Cognition Jul 2025 (OpenAI $3B deal collapsed); prose incorrectly says OpenAI - needs correction
About
Windsurf (2024, formerly Codeium) is the agentic IDE: built around Cascade, an autonomous coding agent that plans, writes, and iterates on code with the developer. The Codeium team rebranded to go all-in on agentic workflows.
Commercial: $15/mo Pro. Acquired by OpenAI (2025, reported $3B) — the acquisition validates the agentic-IDE approach but creates roadmap questions. For developers who want an agent, not just completion, in the IDE. The free tier is generous for individual use.
What it can do
- • Agentic IDE with Cascade\n• Autonomous multi-step coding\n• AI completion and chat\n• Codebase understanding\n• Generous free tier\n• VS Code extension available
Setup
- Download from https://windsurf.com (macOS/Windows/Linux).\n2. Sign in (free tier available).\n3. Open a project; use Cascade for agentic coding.\nVS Code extension also available.
Prerequisites
macOS, Windows, or Linux; a Windsurf account.
Use cases
Works with
Trust score — 7/10
Scored 7/10 (metrics tier). Strong agentic IDE with a generous free tier and the Codeium team's track record. Docked three points: (1) OpenAI acquisition creates roadmap uncertainty; (2) closed and commercial; (3) newer than Cursor with a smaller ecosystem. For agentic-IDE workflows.
How the trust score is built
Full methodology →- Adoption · stars/downloads, log-scaled vs peers
- 8.0/10
- Maintenance · recency, releases, issue load
- 5.0/10
- Openness · license + docs
- 4.5/10
- Manual review · sanity read + red-flag check
- 7.0/10
- · provider-tier estimate — thinner evidence (no public adoption metric)
- · strong agentic IDE; OpenAI acquisition ($3B reported) creates roadmap questions
- · no release date — neutral maintenance score
- · manual review: Cascade is strong; acquisition uncertainty; newer than Cursor; license: proprietary — $15/mo Pro; free tier generous
Sources
Every fact above was checked against these sources. Where a claim comes from the provider and couldn't be independently verified, the text says so.