Devin Desktop
Free tier · Pro $20/mo · Max $200/mo
Developers who want a full IDE that treats coding agents as the main event, and who are comfortable being on a product mid-transition.
At a glance
The facts that usually decide it. The full breakdown, with the caveats, is below.
| Cursor | Devin Desktop | |
|---|---|---|
| Our rating | 5/5 | 4/5 |
| Pricing | Free · Pro $20/mo | Free tier · Pro $20/mo · Max $200/mo |
| Price model | Freemium | Freemium |
| Category | Coding | Coding |
| Best for | Developers who want AI woven into their editor, not bolted on. | Developers who want a full IDE that treats coding agents as the main event, and who are comfortable being on a product mid-transition. |
Prices checked 2 August 2026. Vendors change limits often — confirm on the vendor's own pricing page before you buy.
Most pages answering this question are comparing a product that no longer goes by that name.
Windsurf is now Devin Desktop. Cognition renamed it in June 2026 and shipped
it as an over-the-air update. We checked on 2 August 2026: windsurf.com and
codeium.com both redirect to devin.ai/desktop, and the vendor’s own FAQ says
plans, pricing, extensions, settings and in-progress work all carried over, with
“only the name and branding” changing. Windsurf for JetBrains is still a separate
download.
So if you came here worried you need to migrate: you do not. Nothing was taken away. What changed is what the product is trying to be — and that is the actual comparison.
Side by side
| Cursor | Devin Desktop (was Windsurf) | |
|---|---|---|
| Made by | Anysphere | Cognition |
| Free plan | Limited Agent requests, Composer, no card | Unlimited Tab + inline edits, unlimited SWE-1.6, light agent quota |
| Individual | From $20/mo (Pro, Pro+, Ultra) | $20/mo Pro · $200/mo Max |
| Teams | $40/user/mo | $80/mo + $40 per full dev seat |
| Enterprise | Custom — SCIM, audit logs, pooled usage | Custom, legacy Windsurf plans honoured |
| Runs other vendors’ agents | No — extended via MCP, skills, hooks | Yes — Codex, Claude Agent, OpenCode via ACP |
| Own models | Composer, Cursor Router | SWE-1.6, SWE-1.6 Fast |
| Multi-agent view | Agents window, inbox | Agent Command Center: Spaces, kanban board |
| Beyond the desktop | iPhone, iPad, Slack, web, CLI | Desktop, plus JetBrains plugin |
| Code review | Bugbot agentic review | Agent diff review before push |
Pricing read from cursor.com/pricing and devin.ai/pricing on 2 August 2026.
The split that actually matters
Strip away the feature lists and these two are making opposite bets.
Cursor is closing the loop. Composer is its own model. Cursor Router decides which model handles each request, with Intelligence, Balance and Cost modes, and it is on by default for Teams. Bugbot reviews your pull requests. The pitch is that one company tuned all of it together, and it shows — this is the more polished product, with the bigger community and the better documentation.
Devin Desktop is opening it up. Its Agent Client Protocol lets other people’s agents run inside the editor, and the picker in its own marketing lists Devin Cloud, Devin Local, Codex, Claude Agent, OpenCode and Cascade side by side. You are buying a place to run agents rather than an agent.
Neither is obviously right. If the best coding agent in eighteen months belongs to someone else, the editor that can host it wins. If integration depth is what separates good from great, the single-vendor stack wins. That is the bet, and it is more consequential than any feature on the table above.
Where the money actually differs
Individually, both are $20. The divergence is teams.
Cursor charges $40 per user per month, flat. Devin Desktop charges $80 a month for the team plan plus $40 per full dev seat. At five developers that is roughly $200 against $280; the base fee makes the gap proportionally worst for the smallest teams, and it narrows as you grow.
The free tiers invert this completely. Devin Desktop’s free plan includes unlimited Tab completions, unlimited inline edits and unlimited access to its own SWE-1.6 model, metering only agent tasks. Cursor’s Hobby plan is a genuine trial rather than a permanent home. If what you want is fast autocomplete with occasional agent help, one of these costs nothing indefinitely.
Limitations worth knowing
Cursor. Usage-based billing on top of the subscription is easy to trigger with heavy agent work, and the pricing model has changed more than once — our review flags this as its weakest point. Teams pay double the individual rate per head.
Devin Desktop. Three names in as many years (Codeium → Windsurf → Devin Desktop) is a real signal if tooling stability matters to you. Two overlapping local agents now ship together — Cascade and the Devin Local Agent — and the documentation does not make it obvious which one you should be using. Most tutorials online still say “Windsurf”.
Alternatives to both
If neither fits, the same job is served differently by:
- GitHub Copilot — cheapest at $10/mo, keeps your current editor, and unlimited completions. See Copilot vs Claude Code.
- Claude Code — terminal-first agent rather than an editor. See Claude Code vs Cursor.
- Cline — open-source, bring-your-own-key, runs inside VS Code.
- Replit — browser-based, best when you want no local setup.
Our full ranking is at best AI coding tools, and every option is in the tool directory.
So which one
Cursor for most people and most teams: better polished, cheaper per seat, available everywhere you work, and far easier to get help with.
Devin Desktop if avoiding lock-in is a principle rather than a preference, if you want other vendors’ agents in one editor, or if you are already a Windsurf user — in which case you are already running it, nothing was lost, and the honest answer is that you have no migration to do.
What actually decides it
- First: Windsurf still exists, it is just called something else
- Cognition renamed Windsurf to Devin Desktop in June 2026 and shipped it as an over-the-air update. windsurf.com and codeium.com both now redirect to devin.ai/desktop. Per the vendor's own FAQ, plans, pricing, extensions, settings and in-progress work all carried over, and 'only the name and branding are changing'. Windsurf for JetBrains is still downloadable. If you are searching this comparison because you think you need to migrate, you do not.
- Open agents versus one polished stack
- This is the real fork, and it is a bet on how you think the next two years go. Devin Desktop runs other vendors' agents inside itself through the Agent Client Protocol — its own picker lists Devin Cloud, Devin Local, Codex, Claude Agent, OpenCode and Cascade. Cursor is going the other way, deepening its own stack with Cursor Router, the Composer model and Bugbot. One optimises for not being locked in; the other optimises for everything fitting together.
- Team pricing diverges sharply, and not in the obvious direction
- Individually they are the same $20 a month. For teams Cursor is $40 per user per month, flat. Devin Desktop is $80 a month for the team plan plus $40 per full dev seat on top. At five developers that is roughly $200 against $280, and the base fee means the gap is proportionally worst for the smallest teams. Check this before standardising.
- The free tiers are not comparable
- Devin Desktop's free plan gives unlimited Tab completions, unlimited inline edits and unlimited use of its in-house SWE-1.6 model, with a light quota only on agent tasks. Cursor's Hobby plan gives limited Agent requests and Composer access with no card required. If you mostly want fast autocomplete and only occasional agent work, one of these is free forever and the other is a trial.
- Where each one has been putting its effort
- Cursor's recent releases are about reach and orchestration: an iPad app with full pull-request review, Cursor in Slack with multi-repo support, side chats, conversation search, and a model router with cost/balance/intelligence modes that is on by default for teams. Devin Desktop's are about the Agent Command Center — Spaces, a kanban board of running agents, and reviewing every agent diff before it is pushed. Both are converging on 'manage several agents', from opposite ends.
Which one to pick
Choose Cursor if…
- You want the most polished, most documented experience and the largest community
- You are buying for a team, where $40 a seat flat beats a base fee plus seats
- You want the work to follow you — iPhone, iPad, Slack and the web, not just the desktop
- You would rather one vendor tuned everything together than assemble it yourself
Choose Devin Desktop if…
- You do not want to be locked to one company's agent, and want Codex or Claude Agent inside your editor
- You want a genuinely usable free tier with unlimited autocomplete rather than a trial
- You are already a Windsurf user — your plan, extensions and settings carried over, so there is nothing to migrate
- You work in JetBrains IDEs, which are still supported as a separate download
Cursor vs Devin Desktop FAQ
- Is Windsurf discontinued?
- No. It was renamed Devin Desktop in June 2026. The app, your plan, your pricing, your extensions and your settings all carried across in an over-the-air update — the vendor's FAQ says only the name and branding changed. windsurf.com redirects to devin.ai/desktop, which is why some comparison articles have quietly gone stale.
- Did Cascade get removed?
- No, and we got this wrong ourselves before checking. We previously reported Cascade had reached end of life; it has not. The official documentation still carries a full Cascade section — modes, workflows, hooks, memories, MCP and more. What changed is that a second agent, the Devin Local Agent, now sits beside it, and the newer Agent Command Center is what the product leads with. Corrected 2 August 2026.
- Which is cheaper?
- The same at $20 a month individually. For teams Cursor is cheaper at most sizes: $40 per user per month flat, against Devin Desktop's $80 team fee plus $40 per full dev seat. Free tiers go the other way — Devin Desktop's is far more generous, with unlimited Tab completions and unlimited SWE-1.6.
- Can I run Claude Code or Codex inside either editor?
- Inside Devin Desktop, yes — that is the point of the Agent Client Protocol, and its agent picker lists Codex, Claude Agent and OpenCode alongside its own. Cursor's approach is to be the agent rather than host other people's, extended through MCP servers, skills and hooks instead.
- Is Cursor still a VS Code fork?
- Yes, and Devin Desktop is built on the same IDE foundation Windsurf was. Extensions and keybindings largely carry over in both, so the migration cost between them is mostly muscle memory rather than configuration.
- Which should a team standardise on in 2026?
- Cursor, for most teams — the per-seat price is lower, the admin tooling is more mature, and there is more written about it when someone gets stuck. Standardise on Devin Desktop if avoiding single-vendor lock-in is an explicit engineering principle for you, because its open-protocol approach is the stronger long-term position on exactly that.
- What happened to Codeium?
- Same lineage. Codeium became Windsurf, Cognition acquired it in 2025, and Windsurf became Devin Desktop in June 2026. codeium.com now redirects to devin.ai/desktop as well. Three names, one product line — which is worth weighing if tooling stability matters to you.