Claude Code vs Cursor vs GitHub Copilot vs Windsurf
A side-by-side look at scores, pricing and features — with RECATOOLS' ASEAN-aware verdict for each.
Claude Code
Anthropic's terminal-native agentic coding tool
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Cursor
AI-first VS Code fork — agentic, codebase-aware editing
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GitHub Copilot
The most widely adopted AI pair programmer, native to GitHub
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Windsurf
Agentic AI IDE — rebranded Devin Desktop by Cognition, June 2026
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| RECATOOLS Score | 9 / 10 | 8.6 / 10 | 8.3 / 10 | 7.8 / 10 |
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| Value for money | ||||
| Ease of use | ||||
| ASEAN readiness | ||||
| API quality | ||||
| Pricing | Paid | Freemium | Freemium | Freemium |
| Free tier | — | Hobby plan — standing free tier (not just a trial), 2,000 completions / 50 slow premium requests per month, no card required | Free plan open to all GitHub users (not just students/OSS maintainers) | — |
| Paid from | Included with Claude Pro ($20/mo), Max ($100/$200/mo), or Team/Enterprise | $20/month (Pro); Pro+ $60/month; Ultra $200/month; Teams $40/user/month | Pro $10/mo, Pro+ $39/mo, Max $100/mo, Business $19/user/mo, Enterprise $39/user/mo | Free; Pro $20/month; Max $200/month; Teams $80/month + $40/seat/month |
| Has API | ✓ | ✗ | ✗ | ✗ |
| Open source | ✗ | ✗ | ✗ | ✗ |
| Free to use | ✗ | ✓ | ✗ | ✗ |
| Users | WAU doubled in early 2026 (one of the most-loved coding tools) | 1m+ developers | 4.7m+ paid subscribers | Not reliably disclosed |
| Founded | 2025 | 2022 | 2021 | 2024 |
| Maker | Anthropic | Anysphere | Microsoft | — |
| Verdict | Claude Code set the bar for agentic coding in 2026 — it works in the terminal and IDEs, reads and edits across a whole codebase, runs tests, and carries multi-step tasks to completion rather than autocompleting lines. Je... |
Cursor is the most polished AI-first code editor going — a VS Code fork that bakes model-aware autocomplete, multi-file agent edits and chat-with-your-codebase into the core editing loop. Tab completion and Composer are... |
For teams already on GitHub, Copilot remains the lowest-friction AI coding assistant: inline completions, chat, multi-file edits and an agent mode, native in VS Code, JetBrains and GitHub itself, with a choice of GPT, Cl... |
Windsurf is now Devin Desktop: Cognition acquired the Codeium-built IDE in July 2025 and folded it into the Devin brand on June 2, 2026. The product itself remains a strong agentic editor — VS Code-derived, with the Rust... |
| Full review → | Full review → | Full review → | Full review → |
Comparisons cover up to 4 tools. Scores are RECATOOLS editorial assessments; verify current pricing on each vendor's site.