AINews
CodingSkillsPromptsPacksLearnCompareGlossaryBy roleTools
All tools
AI coding toolsUpdated 8 days ago

Devin Desktop (formerly Windsurf)

By Cognition

AI-native IDE from Cognition, renamed from Windsurf in June 2026. Devin Local is the default agent that plans and executes multi-step coding tasks; the older Cascade agent is still selectable.

Visit Devin Desktop (formerly Windsurf)Freemium

Overview

Devin Desktop is the most credible alternative to Cursor in 2026. It shipped as Windsurf, from Codeium, until Cognition — the company behind the Devin agent — acquired it in July 2025 and renamed it Devin Desktop on June 2, 2026. windsurf.com now redirects to devin.ai/desktop, though the JetBrains and VS Code extensions are still documented as "Windsurf Plugins" and account URLs still sit on the old domain. Same playbook as Cursor: fork VS Code, ship agentic features the plugin API does not allow. The default agent is now Devin Local, a Rust rewrite that Cognition says completes most tasks in up to 30% fewer tokens than its predecessor. Cascade, the original flow-tracking agent that followed what you were doing and which files mattered across a session, is still there as a selectable agent — it stopped being the default, it was not removed. The price argument for Windsurf is gone. In March 2026 the product replaced its credit pool with daily and weekly quotas and raised Pro from $15 to $20 per month, matching Cursor; Teams went from $30 to $40 per full seat on top of an $80 monthly team fee, and a $200/mo Max tier arrived for heavy agent use. Subscribers from before that change are grandfathered at the old $15 and $30 rates indefinitely. What still differs is quota shape and free-tier generosity: the free plan keeps unlimited Tab completions and unlimited inline edits with a light daily and weekly agent allowance, which is more usable than Cursor's free tier, but free users wait for the next reset rather than buying extra usage.

Best for

  • agentic refactors
  • cross-file edits
  • autonomous coding

Strengths

  • ✓Free plan keeps unlimited Tab and inline edits, which is more generous than Cursor's
  • ✓Quotas refresh daily and weekly rather than monthly, so a heavy day does not burn the month
  • ✓Devin Local uses up to 30% fewer tokens than Cascade on the same task, per Cognition
  • ✓The Codeium lineage means real on-prem and self-hosted options
  • ✓VS Code fork inherits the entire VS Code extension ecosystem
  • ✓Privacy mode is on by default in Teams — Cursor requires opting in

Weaknesses

  • ✗A half-step behind Cursor on raw new-feature pace and buzz
  • ✗The price advantage is gone — Pro matched Cursor at $20/mo in March 2026
  • ✗Two renames in two years (Codeium, Windsurf, Devin Desktop) leaves docs and search results inconsistent
  • ✗Smaller community and fewer third-party tutorials than Cursor
  • ✗Indexing on large monorepos can be hit-or-miss in the same way Cursor's is
  • ✗Not the dominant brand in the category — harder to evangelize internally

Pricing

Free

Free

Unlimited Tab completions and unlimited inline edits, plus a light daily and weekly agent quota on a limited model set at slow priority. When the quota runs out you wait for the next reset rather than buying more. Genuinely usable for side projects.

Pro

$20/mo

Unlimited Tab completions and inline edits, higher daily and weekly agent quotas, the full model picker including frontier models from OpenAI, Anthropic and Google, access to Devin Cloud, and extra usage purchasable at API list prices. Same price as Cursor Pro since March 2026.

Max

$200/mo

Everything in Pro with significantly higher quotas. Aimed at people running agents most of the working day.

Teams

$80/mo + $40/seat

An $80 monthly team fee plus $40 per full developer seat, with unlimited flex seats and unlimited concurrent sessions. New Teams plans no longer include SSO — that moved to Enterprise.

Enterprise

Custom

Self-hosted and on-prem options, SSO, dedicated support, custom contracts, and billing in Agent Compute Units rather than quotas. Cognition sells Devin into large engineering orgs, which shows here on procurement.

Use cases

  • Solo devs and small teams optimizing for cost

    The sticker prices now match, so compare quota shape instead: daily and weekly refreshes suit bursty work better than a monthly allowance, and the free tier goes further.

  • Long agentic sessions with continuity

    Flow-tracking means picking up where you left off works better than starting fresh. Multi-day features are smoother.

  • Regulated environments needing on-prem AI coding

    The Codeium lineage shipped self-hosted AI coding for years and Devin Desktop inherits it, so your code never leaves your network.

  • Teams that need a free tier that actually works

    Recruiters can hand interview candidates a real free tool. Open-source maintainers can use it on personal projects without paying.

  • JetBrains-curious teams testing VS Code-fork AI

    The free tier is usable enough to run a real pilot before committing budget. JetBrains users can also run the plugin, still shipped under the Windsurf Plugins name.

  • Pair-programming with model choice

    Like Cursor, the model picker covers GPT-5, Claude, and Gemini. Pick per task, switch as needed.

When not to use

  • ✗You want bleeding-edge features the day they ship — Cursor is ahead on pace
  • ✗You're already deep into Cursor and the muscle memory is built
  • ✗You want the largest community and the most YouTube tutorials
  • ✗You only need autocomplete — Copilot at $10/mo is simpler and cheaper

Alternatives

Cursor

AI-first code editor forked from VS Code, with deep autocomplete and an in-editor chat that knows your repo.

GitHub Copilot

Inline AI autocomplete for VS Code, JetBrains, and other editors, with a chat panel for code questions.

Claude Code

Terminal-based agentic coding assistant that reads, edits, and runs commands across your repo.

Aider

Open-source AI pair-programming tool for the terminal. Works with your local git repo, makes proper commits with diffs, and supports any LLM you bring (Claude, GPT, local).

Tabnine

Privacy-first AI code completion that can run locally or in your private cloud, with custom model training on your codebase.

See it compared

Cursor vs Windsurf

Glossary terms to know

LLM (Large Language Model)AI agentTool use / Function callingFrontier model

Related skills

PR Description WriterRefactor PlannerCode Review Helper
Recent changes
  • Sep 3, 2026Renamed to Devin Desktop (formerly Windsurf) — Cognition rebranded the product on June 2, 2026 and windsurf.com now 308-redirects to devin.ai/desktop. Maker corrected from Codeium to Cognition. Pricing rebuilt: Pro $15 to $20/mo, Teams now an $80/mo team fee plus $40 per full seat, new $200/mo Max tier, credits replaced by daily and weekly quotas in March 2026; pre-change subscribers grandfathered at $15 and $30. Devin Local replaced Cascade as the default agent, with Cascade still selectable.

Other AI coding tools

Cursor

AI-first code editor forked from VS Code, with deep autocomplete and an in-editor chat that knows your repo.

Claude Code

Terminal-based agentic coding assistant that reads, edits, and runs commands across your repo.

GitHub Copilot

Inline AI autocomplete for VS Code, JetBrains, and other editors, with a chat panel for code questions.

Lovable

Builds full-stack web apps from natural-language prompts, with one-click deploy and Supabase integration.

Bolt.new

Browser-based AI app builder that runs full Node.js projects in WebContainers — no install needed.

v0

Generates production-quality React + Tailwind UI components from natural-language prompts.

Replit Agent

Cloud IDE where an AI agent builds, runs, and deploys apps from a single prompt — fully browser-based.

Aider

Open-source AI pair-programming tool for the terminal. Works with your local git repo, makes proper commits with diffs, and supports any LLM you bring (Claude, GPT, local).