SantaCoder vs StarCoder vs CodeLlama vs Windsurf
A side-by-side look at scores, pricing and features — with RECATOOLS' ASEAN-aware verdict for each.
SantaCoder
Efficient open-source code model specialised for Python, Java, and Jav...
Visit
|
StarCoder
Open-source code LLM, 80+ languages, OpenRAIL commercial-use license
Visit
|
CodeLlama
Meta's 2023 open-weight code models, now archived but still usable.
Visit
|
Windsurf
Agentic AI IDE — rebranded Devin Desktop by Cognition, June 2026
Visit
|
|
|---|---|---|---|---|
| RECATOOLS Score | 4.2 / 10 | 6 / 10 | 6.5 / 10 | 7.8 / 10 |
| Capability | ||||
| Value for money | ||||
| Ease of use | ||||
| ASEAN readiness | ||||
| API quality | ||||
| Pricing | Open Source | Open Source | Open Source | Freemium |
| Free tier | Fully free | Fully free | Free to download | — |
| Paid from | — | — | — | Free; Pro $20/month; Max $200/month; Teams $80/month + $40/seat/month |
| Has API | ✓ | ✓ | ✓ | ✗ |
| Open source | ✓ | ✓ | ✓ | ✗ |
| Free to use | ✓ | ✓ | ✓ | ✗ |
| Users | 100k+ downloads | 100k+ researchers and developers | 1m+ downloads | Not reliably disclosed |
| Founded | — | — | — | 2021 |
| Maker | Hugging Face | Hugging Face / ServiceNow | Meta Platforms | Varun Mohan, Douglas Chen |
| Verdict | SantaCoder is a 1.1B-parameter open code model from the BigCode project, trained with fill-in-the-middle on Python, Java and JavaScript to test whether careful data filtering beats raw scale — a bet it won for its era. F... |
StarCoder, from the BigCode project (Hugging Face and ServiceNow), is an openly licensed code-generation model family — now on its second generation, StarCoder2, in 3B/7B/15B sizes trained on The Stack v2's 600+ language... |
Code Llama is Meta's 2023 family of open-weight code models (7B–70B, plus Python and Instruct variants) built on Llama 2, with completion, infill, and up to 100K-token context. It's free to download and self-host under t... |
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.