# Windsurf 42 Hacker News commenters recommended Windsurf and 27 criticized it, November 2025 to November 2026. It was recommended in 10 of 13 months. **Verdict:** Fast agentic AI code editor, a VSCode fork, praised for coding help and codebase context. Most common caveat: frequent pricing changes. ## Why people recommend it - Strong agentic coding experience (5 comments): "Once I was able to get some time in Windsurf I churned through my ideas in 2 hours." ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46373678)) "It's really good. I'm a senior engineer and do a mix of agentic and regular coding" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=45814654)) "When things really broke open for me was when I adopted windsurf with Opus 4" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46583633)) - Good codebase context and indexing (5 comments): "I've found their ability to pull in relevant context improves tasks in exactly the way you're describing." ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47349940)) "For Windsurf at least, it makes it easier to control context." ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48246888)) "Windsurf kept memories a little better than Claude" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47457057)) - Good value for an agentic editor (2 comments): "Windsurf is somehow still the best deal for an agentic VSCode fork" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46040775)) "excellent outputs at low cost" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47195885)) ## What people warn about - Pricing changes and rising costs (5 comments): "Windsurf has just made a shitty move by changing their pricing structure from credits to rolling window percentages" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47512638)) "their pricing is what drove me to not roll it out across my company" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=45817545)) "Our previous credit-based billing model charged the same rate for both simple and complex requests." ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47441321)) - Inconsistent results across models (2 comments): "It has the quirk of deciding for itself on any given day whether to use ChatGPT 5.2 or Claude Opus 4.5" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46685259)) "Windsurf results vary, even when I use it with Claude models." ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=45864781)) - Breaks unrelated code, weak architecture (4 comments): "the AI breaks unrelated things while fixing others" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47410694)) "write great functions but terrible architecture" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46467980)) "All of them get overwhelmed when there is something to implement or change in the codebase" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46260605)) - Weaker results than Cursor (2 comments): "Windsurf for example, which we no longer use due to the inferior results." ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47259779)) "aren't even in the same universe. Cursor is just so much better, faster" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47859248)) ## Alternatives hackers recommend - [AWS Kiro](https://hackerapproved.com/p/kiro.md): 36 recommend - [JetBrains Air](https://hackerapproved.com/p/jetbrains-air.md): 13 recommend - [ThinkRail by JetBrains](https://hackerapproved.com/p/jetbrains-thinkrail.md): 11 recommend - [Zed Delta](https://hackerapproved.com/p/zed-delta.md): 9 recommend ## Where to get it - [Visit the official site](https://devin.ai/desktop) ## Cite as Hacker Approved, "Windsurf", https://hackerapproved.com/p/windsurf/ (counts from 1,795,640 Hacker News comments, November 2025 to November 2026).