These aren't three flavors of the same thing — they're a forked IDE, a terminal agent, and (as of this year) an agent-management desktop app formerly called Windsurf. Pick by workflow, not by hype.

First, a correction most 2025-era comparisons still get wrong

If you’re comparing these three tools off an older article, know this up front: Windsurf, as a standalone brand, has been folded into a product called Devin Desktop. Navigating to windsurf.com now 308-redirects straight to Cognition’s devin.ai/desktop, and that page says so directly — “Devin Desktop is the new name for Windsurf. We’re building on the IDE foundation of Windsurf to introduce the command center for managing all your agents in one place” (devin.ai/desktop, redirect confirmed live). Existing Windsurf users’ plans, extensions, and settings carry over automatically, and a “Windsurf for JetBrains” plugin continues to exist separately. We couldn’t independently re-verify the exact date or terms of the underlying Cognition acquisition in this pass — treat “Windsurf was acquired by Cognition” as directionally correct and check current coverage if the deal’s specifics matter to you.

So “Windsurf” today means: the IDE foundation now sold as Devin Desktop, plus a separately maintained JetBrains plugin still carrying the old name. That’s the thing being compared below.

The three architectures

• Cursor is a fork of VS Code — you get the familiar VS Code shell with Anthropic/OpenAI/etc. models wired into inline completions (“Tab”) and an agent mode (“Composer”/“Agent”). It lives where you already work if you’re a VS Code user.
• Claude Code is terminal-first — a CLI agent that reads your repo, edits files, and runs commands, with IDE extensions and a desktop/web app layered on afterward. See our full Claude Code review for the details. The center of gravity is the shell, not a window.
• Devin Desktop (formerly Windsurf) is positioned less as “an editor with AI” and more as a command center for managing multiple agents at once — Cognition’s own language calls out “Spaces, Kanban view, and multi-agent management” as now front-and-center, with the full IDE experience still reachable underneath (devin.ai/desktop).

None of these are interchangeable skins on the same idea. Cursor bets on staying inside a familiar editor. Claude Code bets on the terminal and CI. Devin Desktop bets on managing several agents as a fleet rather than pairing with one at a time.

Pricing, as of writing

All three price checked directly against official pages; re-verify before you commit, since this is the part of any AI-tool review that goes stale fastest.

Cursor (cursor.com/pricing): Hobby is free with limited Agent/Tab usage. Individual is $16/month with extended limits, MCP/skills/hooks support, cloud agents, and usage-based Bugbot code review. Teams is $32/user/month with centralized billing and SSO. Enterprise is custom, with pooled usage and SCIM.

Claude Code: bundled into Anthropic’s Pro ($17–20/month), Max (from $100/month), Team ($20–25/month per Standard seat, $100/month Premium), and Enterprise plans — see our Claude Code review for the breakdown, or claude.com/pricing directly.

Devin Desktop / Cognition (devin.ai/pricing): Free tier at $0. Pro at $20/month with access to frontier models across vendors and cloud agents. Max at $200/month for higher quotas. Teams at $80/month base plus $40/month per seat. Enterprise is custom.

Which developer fits where

• You live in VS Code and don’t want to leave → Cursor. The learning curve is smallest because the shell is one you already know.
• You’re comfortable in a terminal, want CI integration, and think in diffs → Claude Code. It rewards shell fluency and punishes GUI-only habits.
• You’re managing several agents on parallel tasks and want a dashboard for that, not just an editor → Devin Desktop. It’s explicitly built around the “fleet of agents” framing rather than one agent, one editor window.
• You’re already paying for GitHub Copilot → check your tier before adding a fourth tool to this comparison. See Claude Code vs GitHub Copilot for the pricing overlap most people miss.

Try Cursor → — link is a placeholder until we’re actually enrolled in an affiliate program; treat it as inactive for now.