Windsurf SWE-1.6
Ranked 15 of 15 coding models by recommenders
Fast and good enough for small tasks, grunt work and tests, and people pair it with Opus for higher-level planning. Some find it slow.
Fast and good enough for small tasks, grunt work and tests, and people pair it with Opus for higher-level planning. Some find it slow.
6 people gave an opinion
- recommend it
- 5
- criticize it
- 1
- approval share
- 83%
Recommended in 4 of 13 months
- November 2025: not recommended
- December 2025: not recommended
- January 2026: recommended
- February 2026: not recommended
- March 2026: not recommended
- April 2026: not recommended
- May 2026: recommended
- June 2026: not recommended
- July 2026: recommended
- August 2026: not recommended
- September 2026: recommended
- October 2026: not recommended
- November 2026: not recommended (month in progress)
Why it doesn’t carry the badge
- 5 people recommend itNeeds 10 or more, not met.
- 5 recommenders for every criticNeeds 2 to 1 or better, met.
- Recommended in 4 of 13 monthsNeeds 4 or more, met.
The same three rules apply to every product, and the badge can’t be bought. How the badge works
What people say about it
The reasons people give, with the number of comments that give each one. Open a reason to read what they said.
Why people recommend it
Each mark is one comment
Fast on small tasks
“SWE 1.6 was great for small tasks. Very fast and good enough.”
Comment from 10 Sep 2026 in “Cognition launches new SWE-2 model, Rivaling Fable 5.1 and GPT-Astra” “1.6 does this fine nearly instantly.”
Comment from 8 Jul 2026 in “SWE-1.7 Reach Near GPT 5.5 and Opus Intelligence” Good for grunt work and tests
“I've been using SWE 1.6 quite a lot for grunt work alongside Opus for higher level planning and tricky stuff - a good combo.”
Comment from 8 Jul 2026 in “SWE-1.7 Reach Near GPT 5.5 and Opus Intelligence” “it's not that bad (grunt work, tests, can actually plan and implement some medium level stuff)”
Comment from 8 Jul 2026 in “SWE-1.7 Reach Near GPT 5.5 and Opus Intelligence”
Other coding models people recommend
The four most recommended other coding models, with the same counts for each, so you can compare like for like. The tick on each bar marks the 2 to 1 line the badge needs.
| Product | Recommend | Criticize | Approval | Months | Owned | Badge |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Cursor Composer | 214 | 79 | 73% | 12 | 1 mo11 owners | Approved |
| Qwen3-Coder | 165 | 49 | 77% | 12 | 2 mo7 owners | Approved |
| GPT-5.3-Codex | 135 | 78 | 63% | 11 | 2 mo4 owners | — |
| Meta Muse Glimmer 30B | 70 | 18 | 80% | 3 | — | — |
| Windsurf SWE-1.6This page | 5 | 1 | 83% | 4 | — | — |
What people said
6 of the 7 comments that mention it, newest first. Each links to the original comment.
“Only free model is SWE-1.6 slow”
“SWE 1.6 was great for small tasks. Very fast and good enough.”
“it's not that bad (grunt work, tests, can actually plan and implement some medium level stuff)”
“1.6 does this fine nearly instantly.”
“I've been using SWE 1.6 quite a lot for grunt work alongside Opus for higher level planning and tricky stuff - a good combo.”
“currently free for pro users”
Counts come from 1,795,640 Hacker News comments, November 2025 to November 2026. How we count. Report a mistake.