Windsurf and Cursor are the two leading AI IDEs competing for developer mindshare in 2025. Windsurf strengths: Cascade agent has better multi-file coordination awareness, slightly lower price ($15/month vs $20/month), better IDE integration depth. Cursor strengths: Larger user community and more resources, better @ context management for explicit file references, stronger Copilot++ (tab completion). Performance on real tasks: both achieve similar code generation quality on greenfield tasks. Cursor edges ahead on complex refactors with explicit context. Windsurf handles autonomous agent tasks better with Cascade. Codeium free tier offers unlimited completions (Windsurf does not have unlimited free). Recommendation: try both free tiers for one week. If you use explicit context management heavily, prefer Cursor. If you want AI to explore the codebase more autonomously, prefer Windsurf. At $15-20/month, most developers find either worthwhile.