Cursor vs Windsurf vs Cline in 2026: Which AI Code Editor Should You Use?

The AI code editor market has matured rapidly. In early 2024, Cursor was essentially the only serious option. By 2026, developers face a genuine three-way choice: Cursor, Windsurf (formerly Codeium), and Cline — each representing a fundamentally different philosophy about how AI should integrate with your development workflow.

I’ve spent considerable time with all three. Here’s what you need to know to make the right choice.

The Three Philosophies

Before diving into feature comparisons, it’s worth understanding what each tool is:

• Cursor is a standalone AI-native IDE (a VS Code fork) that bundles everything — models, agent capabilities, tab completions, and team features — into a polished, opinionated package.
• Windsurf (by Codeium, now part of OpenAI) is also a standalone IDE with its own proprietary AI engine called Cascade, emphasizing deep contextual awareness and agentic workflows.
• Cline is an open-source VS Code extension that turns your existing editor into an autonomous AI coding agent. You bring your own API keys and pay only for what you use.

These aren’t just different products — they represent different bets on the future of AI-assisted development. Cursor bets on the integrated experience. Windsurf bets on proprietary AI models tuned for coding. Cline bets on openness and user control.

Pricing Comparison

Pricing is often the first question, and the differences are significant.

Cursor

As of February 2026, Cursor’s pricing has settled into four tiers:

• Hobby (Free): Limited access to frontier models, limited agent usage and tab completions. Good for trying it out, not for daily work.
• Individual ($60/month): Access to all frontier models, extended agent limits, unlimited tab completions, Cloud Agents, CLI access, code review, subagents, and MCP server support. Includes $70/month of usage credits.
• Teams ($40/user/month): Everything in Individual, plus centralized billing, analytics, and team-level spend controls. Includes $20/user/month of usage credits.
• Enterprise (Custom): Shared usage pools, SSO, RBAC, invoice billing, analytics API, and advanced features like Cursor Blame.

The Individual plan at $60/month represents a significant jump from what early adopters may remember. Cursor has clearly moved upmarket.

Windsurf

Windsurf’s pricing is simpler and more budget-friendly:

• Free ($0/month): Unlimited Cascade usage (their AI agent), making it the most generous free tier of the three.
• Pro ($15/month): 500 prompt credits per month, access to all premium models including their proprietary SWE-1.5, Fast Context, and Previews/Deploys. Additional credits at $10 per 250.
• Teams ($30/user/month): 500 credits per user, centralized billing, admin dashboard, knowledge base, and priority support.
• Enterprise: 1,000+ credits per user, SSO, RBAC, hybrid deployment options, and volume discounts.

At $15/month for Pro, Windsurf is the most affordable paid option among the three standalone editors.

Cline

Cline takes a radically different approach to pricing:

• The extension itself is free and open-source (Apache 2.0 license).
• You bring your own API keys from any supported provider — Anthropic, OpenAI, Google, or any OpenRouter-compatible service.
• Your cost depends entirely on your usage and which models you choose.

In practice, a developer using Claude Sonnet 4 through Cline might spend anywhere from $10 to $50+ per month on API costs, depending on how heavily they use agentic features. Light usage (a few dozen prompts per day) typically runs $10–30/month. Heavy agentic use with premium models can exceed that.

The key advantage: zero vendor lock-in. If a cheaper or better model appears tomorrow, you switch instantly.

Feature Comparison

Agentic Capabilities

All three tools now support multi-step autonomous coding — the “agent” paradigm where the AI can read files, make edits, run commands, and iterate on errors.

Cursor offers the most polished agent experience. Its agent mode can create and edit multiple files, run terminal commands, and self-correct based on linter errors or test failures. The addition of Cloud Agents means tasks can run in the background even when your editor is closed. Subagents allow Cursor to break complex tasks into parallel workstreams.

Windsurf’s Cascade is its standout feature. Cascade maintains deep awareness of your codebase and recent changes, creating what Windsurf calls a “flow state” where the AI understands not just your code but your intent. It handles multi-file edits well and has strong contextual memory within a session.

Cline arguably pioneered the autonomous agent pattern in VS Code. It can execute multi-step tasks, run terminal commands, and even interact with a browser for testing. Its human-in-the-loop approval system gives you granular control — you approve each significant action, which provides safety at the cost of some speed.

Code Completion

Cursor’s Tab is widely considered the best AI code completion engine available. It predicts not just the next line but your next likely edit across a file, including cursor jumps. It feels almost psychic once it learns your patterns.

Windsurf offers solid autocomplete, though community consensus places it slightly behind Cursor’s Tab in terms of prediction accuracy and edit-awareness.

Cline doesn’t provide inline code completions at all — it’s purely an agent/chat tool. If you want tab completions alongside Cline, you’ll need a separate extension like Continue or GitHub Copilot.

Model Support

Cursor provides access to frontier models (Claude, GPT-4, Gemini, and others) through its subscription. You don’t manage API keys — it’s all bundled. The downside: you’re limited to whatever models Cursor has negotiated access to, and usage is metered through their credit system.

Windsurf similarly bundles model access, with the addition of their proprietary SWE-1.5 model, which is specifically fine-tuned for software engineering tasks. You can also use models from major providers through their platform.

Cline supports virtually any model through direct API keys or OpenRouter. This includes Claude (all versions), GPT-4o/4.5, Gemini, Llama, DeepSeek, Mistral, and any locally-hosted model via Ollama or LM Studio. This is Cline’s killer feature — complete model freedom.

Context and Codebase Understanding

Cursor indexes your entire codebase and lets you reference files, folders, docs, and URLs directly in prompts using @ mentions. Its context engine is mature and reliable.

Windsurf’s Fast Context claims to provide deeper codebase awareness than competitors, automatically incorporating relevant files and recent changes without explicit @ references. In practice, this works well for medium-sized projects but can sometimes pull in irrelevant context for large monorepos.

Cline reads files on demand and can navigate your project structure, but it relies more on the underlying model’s context window than on proprietary indexing. With large-context models like Claude (200K tokens) or Gemini (1M+ tokens), this is less of a limitation than it used to be.

MCP (Model Context Protocol) Support

All three tools now support MCP servers, allowing you to connect external tools and data sources to your AI assistant. Cursor and Cline have particularly strong MCP ecosystems. Windsurf added MCP support more recently but it’s functional.

Platform and Editor Lock-in

This is a critical differentiator:

• Cursor requires using their standalone IDE. If you’re deeply invested in VS Code extensions, most will work (it’s a fork), but you’re still in Cursor’s ecosystem.
• Windsurf is also a standalone IDE (formerly a VS Code fork, now its own editor). Same trade-off applies.
• Cline runs inside standard VS Code (or any VS Code-compatible editor like VSCodium). Your editor, your extensions, your settings — Cline just adds agent capabilities on top.

Strengths and Weaknesses

Cursor

Strengths:

• Best-in-class tab completions
• Most polished overall experience
• Cloud Agents for background tasks
• Strong team/enterprise features (analytics, billing groups, Cursor Blame)
• Excellent MCP and integrations ecosystem (GitHub, GitLab, Slack, Linear)
• Active development with frequent updates

Weaknesses:

• Most expensive option ($60/month for individual use)
• Closed-source, proprietary platform
• Requires using their IDE (editor lock-in)
• Credit system can be confusing; heavy users may face unexpected costs
• No free tier adequate for real development work

Windsurf

Strengths:

• Most generous free tier (unlimited Cascade)
• Affordable Pro plan ($15/month)
• Strong contextual awareness with Fast Context
• Proprietary SWE-1.5 model optimized for coding
• Clean, focused interface
• Previews and Deploys features for rapid prototyping

Weaknesses:

• Now owned by OpenAI, raising questions about long-term independence and direction
• Some users report model quality inconsistencies (community reports suggest downgrades)
• Credit system can burn through quickly on complex tasks
• Smaller ecosystem of integrations compared to Cursor
• Editor lock-in (standalone IDE)

Cline

Strengths:

• Completely free and open-source (Apache 2.0)
• Bring your own API keys — total model freedom
• No vendor lock-in whatsoever
• Runs in standard VS Code — keep your entire setup
• Transparent costs (you see exactly what each API call costs)
• Active community with forks like Roo Code and Kilo Code adding features
• Human-in-the-loop approvals for safety

Weaknesses:

• No inline code completions (need a separate tool)
• Requires managing your own API keys and understanding model pricing
• Can be expensive with heavy usage of premium models
• Less polished UX compared to Cursor or Windsurf
• No built-in team management features (yet — Teams plan is planned for mid-2026)
• Steeper learning curve for developers unfamiliar with API key management

Who Should Use What?

Choose Cursor If…

• You want the most polished, “it just works” AI coding experience
• Tab completions are critical to your workflow
• You’re part of a team that needs centralized billing, analytics, and admin controls
• You’re comfortable paying $60/month for a premium tool that saves you hours daily
• You want Cloud Agents for background task execution
• Enterprise features (SSO, RBAC, audit trails) matter to you

Choose Windsurf If…

• Budget matters — $15/month is hard to beat for a full-featured AI IDE
• You want a generous free tier to evaluate without commitment
• Deep contextual awareness (Cascade/Fast Context) appeals to your workflow
• You’re building projects where built-in Previews and Deploys are useful
• You’re comfortable with the OpenAI acquisition and its implications

Choose Cline If…

• You refuse to be locked into a proprietary IDE
• Model flexibility is paramount — you want to use any model, anytime, from any provider
• You prefer open-source tools and transparent costs
• You’re comfortable managing API keys and understanding token pricing
• You want to keep your existing VS Code setup exactly as it is
• You’re already using terminal-based AI agents and want a complementary GUI tool
• Privacy matters — with your own API keys, your code doesn’t route through a third-party platform’s servers (beyond the model provider itself)

The Budget Breakdown

Let’s make costs concrete for a typical full-time developer:

Cline costs vary significantly based on model choice. Using Claude Sonnet 4 vs GPT-4o vs a cheaper model like DeepSeek can change costs by 3–5x.

Note: Cursor’s Individual plan includes $70/month of usage credits. If you exceed that, you pay overages. Windsurf’s Pro plan includes 500 credits with add-ons at $10/250 credits. Cline has no markup — you pay the model provider directly.

What About GitHub Copilot?

You might wonder where GitHub Copilot fits. Copilot occupies a different niche — it’s primarily an inline completion tool that has been adding agent features. At $10/month (Individual) or $19/month (Business), it’s the cheapest option with a subscription, but its agentic capabilities still lag behind all three tools compared here. If you only need smart autocomplete and don’t care about autonomous agents, Copilot remains a solid choice. But for the agentic workflows that define AI coding in 2026, Cursor, Windsurf, and Cline are the frontrunners.

The Bigger Picture

The AI code editor space is consolidating around a few key trends:

1. Agents are table stakes. All three tools can autonomously write, test, and debug code. The differentiation is in reliability, speed, and UX polish.

2. Model flexibility matters more than ever. New models drop monthly. Cline’s BYOK approach looks increasingly prescient as no single model dominates across all tasks.

3. The IDE vs. extension debate is real. Cursor and Windsurf ask you to adopt their editor. Cline lets you stay in VS Code. For many developers, this is the deciding factor.

4. Security is a growing concern. When your AI assistant can read your entire codebase and execute terminal commands, trust matters. All three tools have different security postures — if this is a priority for you, read our deep dive on vibe coding security risks.

5. The lines are blurring. Cursor now offers CLI tools. Cline forks are adding team features. Windsurf is part of OpenAI. Terminal-based agents like Claude Code and Codex CLI are competing from the other direction. The “AI code editor” category itself may not exist in its current form for much longer.

Can You Combine Them?

Yes — and many developers do. A common setup is:

• Cline + GitHub Copilot in VS Code: Copilot handles inline completions while Cline handles agentic tasks. This gives you the best of both worlds without leaving VS Code.
• Cursor for work, Cline for personal projects: Use Cursor’s team features at your day job and Cline’s BYOK flexibility for side projects where you control costs directly.
• Windsurf free tier for exploration, Cursor for production: Windsurf’s unlimited free Cascade is great for prototyping and learning, while Cursor’s more reliable agent handles production codebases.

The tools aren’t mutually exclusive. Experiment to find your preferred combination.

How to Evaluate for Your Workflow

Rather than trusting any comparison (including this one), here’s a practical evaluation framework:

1. Pick a real task — not a toy example. Use a bug you need to fix or a feature you need to build in an actual project.
2. Try each tool on the same task. Windsurf’s free tier and Cline (with a small API budget) make this essentially free.
3. Measure what matters to you: Time to completion? Quality of generated code? How much manual correction was needed? How natural did the interaction feel?
4. Test the edges. Try a task involving multiple files, unfamiliar libraries, or ambiguous requirements. This is where tool differences become most apparent.
5. Check the costs. After a week of real usage, compare what you actually spent (or would have spent) on each tool.

No benchmark or review article can replace 30 minutes of hands-on experience with your own codebase.

My Recommendation

If I had to pick one: start with Cline if you’re a developer who values control and transparency, start with Cursor if you want the best out-of-the-box experience and don’t mind the cost, or start with Windsurf’s free tier if you want to try agentic coding without any financial commitment.

The best news? None of these choices are permanent. You can switch between them in an afternoon. The skills you build — writing good prompts, structuring code for AI comprehension, reviewing AI-generated output — transfer across all of them.

What matters most isn’t which editor you choose. It’s that you’re using one at all. In 2026, AI-assisted coding isn’t a competitive advantage anymore — it’s table stakes. If you’re coming from vibe coding tools and want to level up to professional AI-assisted development, any of these three will get you there.

Pick one. Start building. Switch if it doesn’t fit. That’s the beauty of a competitive market.

Pricing and features were verified against official sources as of February 2026. This space moves fast — always check the vendor’s pricing page before subscribing.