[Androider]

Windsurf and Cursor feel like temporary stopgaps, products of a narrow window in time before the landscape shifts again.

Microsoft has clearly taken notice. They're already starting to lock down the upstream VSCode codebase, as seen with recent changes to the C/C++ extension [0]. It's not hard to imagine that future features like TypeScript 7.0 might be limited or even withheld from forks entirely. At the same time, Microsoft will likely replicate Windsurf and Cursor's features within a year. And deliver them with far greater stability and polish.

Both Windsurf and Cursor are riddled with bugs that don't exist upstream, _especially_ in their AI assistant features beyond the VSCode core. Context management which is supposed to be the core featured added is itself incredibly poorly implemented [1].

Ultimately, the future isn't about a smarter editor, it's about a smarter teammate. Tools like GitHub Copilot or future agents will handle entire engineering tickets: generating PRs with tests, taking feedback, and iterating like a real collaborator.

[0] https://www.theregister.com/2025/04/24/microsoft_vs_code_sub...

[1] https://www.reddit.com/r/cursor/comments/1kbt790/rules_in_49...

[leonidasv]

The thing is: we should not need standalone editors just to use AI coding agents. They could be just plugins, but Microsoft does not want to bend the plugin API enough for that. Windsurf has a "plugin edition" for JetBrains IDEs that works really, really well[0] (they also have a VSCode plugin[1] but it's lacking in comparison).

However, given that JetBrains also have their own AI offering[2], I'm not sure how long that will last too...

[0] https://plugins.jetbrains.com/plugin/20540-windsurf-plugin-f...

[1] https://marketplace.visualstudio.com/items?itemName=Codeium....

[2] https://www.jetbrains.com/ai/

[owendarko]

There are already a bunch of open source, free, and popular "AI coding agent" extensions for VS Code:

1) Cline (1.4mil downloads)

2) Roo Code (a fork of Cline, 450k downloads)

Still a drop in the bucket compared to Cursor in terms of # of users, but they're growing pretty fast.

Disclaimer: I maintain Kilo Code, which competes with 1) and 2) so I'm pretty familiar with this space/the growth patterns.

[no_wizard]

I suspect JetBrains will never limit this. I've yet to recall anything in the past where they have done this even when they have a similar offering.

In fact, their own AI extension appears to be pluggable in and of itself. I think they see the value in being easy to adapt different AI solutions to rather than trying to only provide their own.

[silverwind]

> They could be just plugins

No, they should be LSPs so that they can be integrated into any editor, not just VSCode.

[Frotag]

> Microsoft does not want to bend the plugin API enough for that.

What doesn't the current API allow plugins to do? I'm guessing custom UI stuff that lives outside a panel?

[iambateman]

Is windsurf essentially the same as cursor? I didn’t realize there was something similar for JetBrains but if it’s a cursor-equivalent for JB that would be wonderful.

[sanderjd]

I haven't found any of the jetbrains options (including Windsurf) nearly as satisfying to use as Cursor. But YMMV I guess!

[doix]

> At the same time, Microsoft will likely replicate Windsurf and Cursor's features within a year. And deliver them with far greater stability and polish.

I agree with the first part, I'm much less optimistic about the second part. I suspect they will create something that is worse, but cheaper if you already pay for Github/Office 365/whatever. Then many large enterprises will switch to save money whilst the engineers complain, just like with Teams.

[pjmlp]

They already succeedd well enough that VSCode is the only Electron app I tolerate on my private systems, naturally on device assigned ones I have less control.

[madeofpalk]

I mean they already have. GitHub Copilot was the first LLM coding tool before "LLM" was in the lexicon. MS/Github kind of squandered their lead with it, but they released Agent Mode a few months back https://github.blog/news-insights/product-news/github-copilo...

[Aeolun]

That seems pretty bold. I still find myself switching to basically anything but the VS code copilot agent any chance I get.

[preciousoo]

If the VS Code team are delivering the product, I have some amount of trust. If it’s the VS team, good luck to everyone involved

[arresin]

Copilot owns the platform, had an amazing head start and yet still is the worst option available. I don’t mean to be harsh but this was a titanic fumble.

[beardedwizard]

GitHub has been failing upward for more than 5 years. They could have totally dominated software development and security - failed. Could have been the undisputed champion of code hosting - failed. Should have dominated development co-pilots - failed.

I actually find it a little reassuring that they can't seem to get out of their own way.

[aravindputrevu]

I still can't believe how they let Cursor (which is amazing until somepoint) take away all the shine.

This reminds me of "big companies moves slow.." line.

[jayd16]

I'm curious what the cost per user is on Copilot. It doesn't make sense for them to be a loss leader so they're probably running the model at cost or a profit compared to the startups that have more of an incentive to scramble for market share.

[Szpadel]

For someone that never used windsurf, what features does it have that GitHub copilot does not? Reading their webpages I didn't spot any "killer feature" that would convince me to switch.

I always felt that cursor and windsurf should be just extension to vscode instead of a fork. Was there some missing functionality is vscode that was missing? Is it still missing?

There are some extensions that work in this way and allow to use multiple implementations depending on task at hand without any long term commitment.

I feel like such fragmentation is by artificial just to lock users in single ecosystem.

[jstummbillig]

It can write a lot of code, that works, better than vscode can (right now).

It's in a lot of ways the OpenAI story itself: Can they keep an edge? Or is there at least something that will keep people from just switching product?

Who knows. People have opinions, of course. OpenAIs opinion (which should reasonably count for something, them being the current AI-as-a-product leader) is worth $3B as of today.

[oefrha]

The differentiator of Cursor is it’s way smarter at basic code completion than GitHub Copilot. I pay for Cursor instead of GitHub Copilot even though I get the latter for free from open source contributions, and I made that decision after five minutes of usage after using Copilot for what, more than a year? I won’t even talk about how Cursor guesses where I’m going to edit next and makes the correct edit most of the time, just the fact that Copliot makes completions that result in unbalanced parentheses/braces all the time and Cursor doesn’t makes the switch a no-brainer; that’s not even a fucking AI problem, you just need to look around and see that function you just completed already has a closing curly brace, all it takes is some traditional AST analysis if your model is dumb. (Copilot made zero progress on that issue during my time using it, but I can’t say if that was fixed after I ditched it.)

[ZeroTalent]

It's better at coding, but they are essentially paying for users.

I would also argue that the product could be built over two weekends with a small team. They offer some groundbreaking solutions, but since we know that they work and how, it's easy to replicate them. That also means they have significant talent there.

Hence, they are also buying the employees.

The code base itself is basically worth nothing, in my opinion.

[johntarter]

I'm going back and forth between Windsurf and Github Copilot right now. Windsurf's development iteration speed is much fast and features are added faster.

For example, Github only autocompletes based on what file you have opened in the current editor's tab. Windsurf indexes your entire code base and seems able to autocomplete based on what other files you have in your project. Autocomplete also spans across multiple lines and open tabs.

Windsurf's agentic tool (Cascade) can run terminal commands and read the output without opening a terminal like copilot. It can undo the agent's actions easier than Copilot. Though I think Cursor is superior in that regard, it can undo multiple checkpoints.

Still evaluating Windsurf but it, Cursor, and Claude Code are all more sophisticated than Github copilot at the moment. I'm sure copilot will catchup but by that time the other tools may have already iterated ahead.

[horns4lyfe]

The feature they have over copilot is “not sucking”

[marricks]

Wow, folks almost had me convinced MS turned a new leaf 5 years ago.

Tale as old as time, song as old as rhyme: embrace, extend, extinguish.

[tomnipotent]

Do you consider the Microsoft-managed plug-in marketplace and infrastructure to be a private or public resource? From my understanding Microsoft has never been vague on the position that the plugin marketplace is exclusive to the official VS Code distribution, and the TOS specifically forbids forks from doing so.

Cursor and other forks have decided to circumvent this, some even going so far as to use proxies to bypass restrictions.

I'm not convinced Microsoft owes other billion dollar companies free access to a product they've built, curated, and supported for over a decade. Plug-in authors are not restricted from publishing their products on competing marketplaces.

[pjmlp]

Nah, folks keep giving human behaviours to big corporations instead of understanding everyone is in the game for the shareholders.

[johntarter]

Satya's talked about how some acquired companies such as LinkedIn and Github are allowed to operate independently for the most part and keep their culture. Or else we'd all be using Teams instead of the LinkedIn messaging feature!

[dontlikeyoueith]

> Microsoft will likely replicate Windsurf and Cursor's features within a year.

Probably.

> And deliver them with far greater stability and polish

That seems ... overly optimistic given MS's history.

[Onavo]

Their devtools team is surprisingly competent when they choose to be. Pre-2015, people used Sublime Text, Atom, Textmate, Notepad++, Light Table, Brackets, Emacs/Vim, Intellij. VS code single handedly crushed all of them with code completion and language servers that require zero configuration. Emacs/Vim lost share, Jetbrains (and also Eclipse) were forced to release their own "lightweight" code editors, and everybody else became mostly irrelevant (except perhaps Sublime Text since it has the best native performance out of all editors).

[elevatortrim]

Microsoft is owing its bad reputation to Windows, Office, Sharepoint!!!, Teams (and more?). The quality of developer tools and languages (C#, Visual Studio, Code and .NET Ecosystem, Azure UI is also great) from Microsoft has been flawless (with some exceptions like webforms, or ui code generation tools of the past).

[bigbinary]

These are investment plays a company makes when holding too much money, and not a smart move this early in the technology imo

Buying competition while everyone’s still fighting might straddle you with a lame horse

[AlwaysRock]

I was a little late to jump on the cursor bandwagon but finally downloaded it because i liked the LLM chat interface in the sidebar. By the time my free trial ran out, VSCode had added a LLM chat interface in the sidebar. Yes Cursor had a bit better auto complete and maybe a few other things but it wasnt good enough that it was worth paying for.

But I'm glad OpenAI is getting into the tooling space in this way. I cant wait to use all the cool features they build after VSCode rips them off.

[cheema33]

> By the time my free trial ran out, VSCode had added a LLM chat interface in the sidebar.

I am guessing you are talking about GitHub Copilot when you say VSCode. GitHub Copilot is far far inferior product when compared to Cursor, Windsurf or Augment Code. Most people who try almost any Copilot alternative for a reasonable amount of time end up canceling their Copilot subscription. I did, after two months of using both.

[timabdulla]

I mean, the fact that OpenAI, at the bleeding edge of it all, has decided to buy an IDE is a rather strong hint that the future of agents handling entire engineering tickets might be further out than many believe.

If autonomous agents were just around the corner, then why wouldn't OpenAI bet on their own Codex product obviating (most) need for an IDE and save themselves the $3 billion?

[slt2021]

why OpenAI purchased windsurf instead of prompting openai to create something like windsurf?

this is the question i am still asking...

[osigurdson]

This is a good point. It is already the case that unless you deeply review every Windsurf change you will have zero understanding of your codebase. If it gets 1000X better in the next 3 years why would anyone look at code at all?

Of course, back to reality. Today, at least in my workflow, I use / like Windsurf but it is a small part of what I am doing. For any code I want to keep I mostly write it by hand (using vim for a very bare-bones / cognitive mode experience). For me, the real flow state occurs in vim while ChatGPT and Windsurf are great for exploration.

[bix6]

It sounds like the openAI team is overburdened (I guess they aren’t AI super users yet) so this may be their only option. Easy entry into a key segment, at least for now, and locks out competitors.

[macrolime]

They might just want a way to quickly collect data needed for fine-tuning the next generation of programming agents.

[dist-epoch]

Cursor ($9 bil) has a higher valuation than JetBrains ($7 bil). Think about that.

[rchaud]

Non-public numbers may as well be pulled out of thin air. WeWork was a $50bn company according to its VC bagholders, and that was marked down by 80% once they released their books to the general public.

[mrweasel]

Tells me that the markets ability to sensibly valuate companies is pretty messed up.

[aledalgrande]

What did OpenAI buy for $3B? That's what I'm wondering.

[cellis]

I never did like JetBrains primary product, IntelliJ. It felt clunky even compared to Eclipse for Java, let alone VSCode for … everything. DataGrip is the lone standout imo, but as of the last update I paid for, it didn’t have even basic copilot

[FuckButtons]

I think you’re being overoptimistic about the skill ceiling that this generation of Ai is likely to have.

[DanHulton]

Yeah. Every time I see entirely unfounded claims like that, I remember that I've been seeing them for literal years now. While there have definitely been improvements in AI capability, they have largely been very marginal, while the claimed "will handle entire engineering tickets" capability requires huge leaps in capability and reliability that _we just have not seen evidence for._

Mentally, I'm replacing claims like this with "it will do magic!" and I think I'm just about as likely to be correct.

[joshwcomeau]

++. Was surprised I had to scroll so far to find someone saying this!

[999900000999]

>Ultimately, the future isn't about a smarter editor, it's about a smarter teammate. Tools like GitHub Copilot or future agents will handle entire engineering tickets: generating PRs with tests, taking feedback, and iterating like a real collaborator.

I think a few options for this already exist, but honestly they don't go far enough. I want something like an AI scrum master, for hyper agile teams, that can task out smaller tickets to AI sub agents.

I would integrate this thing in with something like an AI powered Jira.

Two arguments exists.

1. I need to take about 6 months off and start building this now, even if I don't know exactly how I'll get it done. Between a combination of vibe coding and maybe a bit of outsourced work ( looking at Eastern Europe), I could get this done with my personal funds.

2. To do this properly would probably require tens of millions of dollars. I'll probably burn myself out trying to do it solo without ultimately getting to a sellable product.

The biggest issue here is to actually scale I would need to either have users bring their own LLM keys or have tens of thousands to spend on LLM tokens.

[behnamoh]

> At the same time, Microsoft will likely replicate Windsurf and Cursor's features within a year. And deliver them with far greater stability and polish.

Microsoft software quality has gone downhill recently, and I'm not going to bet on them delivering something more polished than WS and Cursor here.

Side: all images on Microsoft websites are low resolution! it's like they don't even check their own website.

[moi2388]

30% of their code is now written with AI.

Their “programmers” are more busy with making blogs and videos than functioning tests or technical documentation, and they start using JavaScript and Python for everything.

I’m not surprised their quality went to shit. There are some pearls left, C# in general is pretty good, and Aspire is becoming quite neat.

The latter I think mainly because David Fowler is just a great developer

[hnlurker22]

I just abandoned Windsurf because I found copy/pasting code with ChatGPT's web interface significantly better in terms of results.

[jonplackett]

I’m still just copying and pasting. Was considering trying it. Is it really not any better?

[mliker]

Agreed. Especially with tools like Claude Code, which can get better over time and remove the need to use Windsurf and Cursor.

[prpl]

I view this as an another step in the push/pull between local things, remote things, local things remotely, thin clients, network partitioning, cloud, zero trust, etc...

The last cycle I remember of this IMO is iPython -> Jupyterhub/Jupyterlab. Of course, iPython has existed for a long time, though that change was made because data was too big to analyze locally and it turns out it was more convenient to centrally manage kernels/images/libraries for convenience.

MCP servers and Cursor/Windsurf changed that a bit, but it will end up centralized again at some point (or at least aggregated, if it's not already?). People are passing around lists of interesting MCP servers now, and that will be out of fashion in less than 12 months.

[dmitrygr]

> Tools like GitHub Copilot or future agents will handle entire engineering tickets

Care to place a bet?

[maccard]

> Ultimately, the future isn't about a smarter editor, it's about a smarter teammate. Tools like GitHub Copilot or future agents will handle entire engineering tickets: generating PRs with tests, taking feedback, and iterating like a real collaborator.

I disagree, but would love to be wrong. These tools exploded onto the scene and were massive productivity helpers, but since their initial integrations they’ve churned rather than improved in the last 2 years. They are even worse when you try to iterate rather than just get them to one shot the problem space.

[onlyrealcuzzo]

> At the same time, Microsoft will likely replicate Windsurf and Cursor's features within a year. And deliver them with far greater stability and polish.

We've seen this before with Office.

We'll see it again.

[blitzar]

They don't even need to be good - just in the bundle you (your company) are already paying for and the competition can't compete.

[CptanPanic]

At the speed that AI programming is going, there will be something else that they are falling behind of that will exist in a year. Just like Agents now, they are adding them, but will always be a step behind progress.

[rvz]

...as done with Teams.

Microsoft Build is this month [0] and it will tell where they are going next (other than price cuts).

I'm expecting disappointment for now, but also expecting GitHub Copilot to be upgraded. Then we'll see if they are ahead or so far behind.

[0] https://build.microsoft.com/en-US/home

[dughnut]

“And will deliver them with far greater stability and polish”

Stable and polished are not words that ever came to my mind while using any Microsoft product.

[robinhood]

"riddled with bugs". "incredibly poorly implemented". Man, what are you talking about? Your comment seems based on nothing but what you read online.

Have you used Cursor on a daily basis? I have. Every day for six months now. I haven't encountered a single bug that prevent me to work.

Moreover, while Microsoft tries to catch up lately, it's still very far behind, especially on the "tab autocompletion" front.

[Androider]

I use Cursor in anger every day. The core idea behind Cursor is genuinely smart. But the execution is like the classic "unfinished horse" meme [0].

Microsoft provides the editor base, foundation models provide the smarts, and Cursor provides some, in my experience, extremely buggy context management features. There is no moat.

[0] https://knowyourmeme.com/memes/unfinished-horse-drawing-flam...

[kasey_junk]

I have. It’s ~fine. The only feature difference it has currently to vs code that makes a difference to me is allowing multiple files for rules.

Meanwhile GitHub web integration is approaching seamless in vs code. To the point I often forget I’m in a browser instead of the app, until an extension I use doesn’t work.

[prawn]

I've tried both Cursor and VS Code with AI in the agent/edit mode. They both seem similar enough. Is there another mode I haven't found where Cursor has a distinct advantage? If so, I'd like to try it.

I gave up on Cursor because my trial ran out, while VS Code with Copilot doesn't seem to charge me anything.

[hobo_mark]

I have tried (stopped a couple months ago). The Python extensions broke all the time while they manually patched around the latest MS release a few days later. Syntax highlighting glitched every other day requiring a full reload. Remote dev via SSH or tunnels also randomly stopped working. Liveshare... Essentially they do not own the platform their core product is built on.

Maybe it's fine if you only do local development in other languages (Javascript?), but I completely swore it off.

[serjester]

As a counterpoint, I also use cursor as my daily driver and I have been tempted to switch many times because of the endless bugs. Just take a look at their forum.

[karn97]

I dont care about a vibe coders experience

[arjunaaqa]

Plus, cursor & windsurf excel in user experience which is an alien concept to Microsoft.

[cft]

I am slightly more optimistic, because the API may not be fully centralized- there may be more than one foundational AI company in the end. Like WhatsApp exists because there's the iOS/Android duopoly, an agent-neutral IDE from a non-foundational company without its own API aspirations may continue to exist

[3abiton]

This is the right take, but long term. Short term, it's just about investor hype. Cursor is becoming more mainstream and if OpenAI falls behind on this, they'll be losing momentum. But yes, the fields moves so fast, it'll be totally different in a year or 2. Does anyone recall langchain?

[rglover]

If Microsoft were smart, they'd just acquire Cline (or fork it), make it an official VSCode feature and be done with it. It smokes Cursor and Windsurf and it's a free plugin you can just install in un-forked VSCode.

[m3kw9]

Microsoft is slow af for a company that size. Maybe yeah, they are slow because of that size. Don’t bet on them out accelerating a startup, the evidence so far in the past year is that they will stay a year behind every year

[sanderjd]

I'm frankly very skeptical of your last paragraph. That's not at all what seems useful to me. But we'll see!

But I agree with you about the first part, and I think it's awesome for me as a user that all this competition to build a matter mousetrap is happening right now! I'm not as certain as you are that Microsoft will end up building a better version. It's definitely one of the likely outcomes. But it's also totally plausible that Cursor or Windsurf can win the race, even if they need to replace every single one of the MS extensions and entirely diverge the core IDE from upstream. These products are well capitalized and it's just not that hard to build the core pieces of an IDE.

[re5i5tor]

I have to admit skepticism re: “far greater stability and polish” from MS

[tough]

Github Copilot is pretty much the same UI as cursor on vscode already

[cheema33]

UI may be close. Functionality is very very different. Copilot is $10/month. Cursor is $20/month. I canceled my Copilot subscription after 2 months of using both. Compares to competition, Copilot has been garbage for quite some time.

[aravindputrevu]

I completely disagree and feel MS would never do it. Not a MS Employee, but they have moved on from such battles.

They should have restricted the Marketplace several years ago, however, they are doing it now.

With C++, they are part of MFC's, they are the legal owners, not like Google vs Oracle in case of Java.

Lastly, with AI Code IDEs I think yes, there is a case, the need for IDE might be very less. Like a steering on a self driving car.

[wkat4242]

Why should they have restricted the marketplace? It's really annoying imo that they lock vs codium out of the more useful plugins like the SSH remote one. However luckily most only take a setting or two to enable anyway.

[pjmlp]

ISO C++ has nothing to do with MFC.

[john-h-k]

Was this written by an LLM? Not accusative but something about the vibe strongly suggests it

[matheusmoreira]

> If they start walling off features like TypeScript 7.0 from forks, the open source pushback will be fierce—and that could backfire hard.

Do they have the man power to compete with Microsoft?

Linux managed to do it but Linux is the biggest, most successful free software project there is. Firefox and its forks are a better example. If Mozilla stopped working on Firefox, the forks would be pretty much dead in the water: they simply do not have the man power necessary to maintain a modern browser.