Cursor vs Windsurf vs Claude Code — What I Actually Use After 6 Months

Every few weeks there's a new "I tested X vs Y for 30 days" post on Dev.to. Most of them are surface-level — someone builds a todo app and declares a winner. That's not how real projects work.

I've been using Cursor, Windsurf, and Claude Code across actual client work for the past six months: Next.js apps, n8n automation backends, ESP32 firmware, and a few internal tools. Not toy projects — stuff that ships to production and has to work at 2 AM when a client's webhook breaks.

Here's what I learned.

The Short Version

I use all three. But not equally, and not for the same things.

• Cursor is my daily driver for frontend and iterative coding
• Claude Code handles architecture decisions and complex refactors
• Windsurf I mostly dropped after month three

That's the TL;DR. If you want the reasoning, keep reading.

Cursor — The One I Open Every Morning

Cursor is essentially VS Code with AI deeply integrated. If you already live in VS Code (and let's be real, most of us do), the switching cost is zero. Your extensions work, your keybindings work, your muscle memory works.

What makes it stick for daily use:

Tab completion that actually understands context. This isn't GitHub Copilot circa 2023. Cursor's tab predictions are aware of your entire file, the files you have open, and the patterns in your codebase. I'd estimate it saves me 30-40 minutes a day on boilerplate alone.

Inline editing with Cmd+K. Select a block of code, describe what you want changed, and it diffs it in place. This is where Cursor shines for iterative work — you're not context-switching to a terminal or a chat panel. You stay in the flow.

The composer for multi-file edits. When I need to add a new API route that touches the handler, the types file, the validation schema, and the frontend hook — Cursor's Composer mode handles all four files in one shot. It's not perfect every time, but it gets the structure right about 80% of the time, and the remaining 20% is faster to fix than to write from scratch.

The pricing is $20/month for Pro, which includes 500 "fast" requests. For heavy usage days I blow through that, but the slow fallback is still usable. Honestly, for the time it saves, $20 is nothing.

Where Cursor falls short: large-scale refactors. If I need to restructure a module that touches 15+ files, Cursor starts losing track of the full picture. It works file-by-file and doesn't hold the architectural vision across a big change. That's where the next tool comes in.

Claude Code — The Senior Dev in Your Terminal

Claude Code is a different animal. It's not an IDE — it's a terminal agent that reads your codebase, understands the architecture, and executes multi-step tasks autonomously. You describe what you want, and it figures out which files to touch, in what order, and why.

The 200K context window is the key differentiator. Claude Code can ingest your entire project structure, understand the relationships between modules, and make changes that are architecturally consistent. The code it produces reads like a senior developer wrote it — proper error handling, consistent patterns, meaningful variable names.

Here's a real example from last month. I had a Next.js app with a messy auth system — half the routes used middleware checks, half used inline getServerSession() calls, and the token refresh logic was duplicated in three places. I told Claude Code:

Refactor the auth system. All routes should use middleware for auth checks.
Centralize token refresh. Remove duplicate session logic. Keep the existing
API contracts intact so the frontend doesn't break.

It created a plan, showed me which files it would touch (17 files), explained its approach, and executed. Took about 4 minutes. The result was clean, consistent, and — critically — it didn't break a single existing test. I've had junior developers spend two days on this kind of refactor and still miss edge cases.

Where I use Claude Code specifically:

• Initial project scaffolding (it makes excellent architectural decisions)
• Complex refactors across many files
• Writing comprehensive test suites (it's remarkably good at thinking about edge cases)
• Debugging gnarly issues where the bug could be anywhere in the stack
• Code reviews — I sometimes pipe a diff into Claude Code and ask it to review

The downsides are real though. It's expensive if you're on API billing — heavy days can run $10-15. The Max plan at $100/month is more predictable but still steep. And the terminal-based workflow means you're not getting real-time suggestions as you type. It's a "stop, think, execute" tool, not a "flow state" tool.

Also, Claude Code occasionally goes on tangents. You ask it to fix a bug and it decides to also refactor the surrounding code, add error handling you didn't ask for, and update the README. Sometimes that's great. Sometimes you just wanted the one-line fix.

Windsurf — Why I Stopped Using It

Windsurf markets itself as an "agentic IDE" — it doesn't just suggest code, it actively executes commands, runs your dev server, and builds features end-to-end. The pitch is compelling, and at $15/month it undercuts Cursor by $5.

I used it seriously for about three months. Here's why it didn't stick:

The "agent" behavior is unpredictable. Windsurf wants to be autonomous, but autonomy requires trust, and trust requires consistency. Too many times it would make a change, break something, try to fix it, and dig the hole deeper. With Cursor, I'm in control and the AI assists. With Claude Code, the AI is in control but the reasoning is transparent and I can review before it executes. Windsurf sits in an awkward middle ground.

The Cascade feature is cool but fragile. Cascade is Windsurf's multi-step task execution. In theory, you describe a feature and it builds it step by step. In practice, it often loses context between steps. By step 4 of a 6-step plan, it's forgotten the conventions it established in step 1. Claude Code handles this much better because of its larger context window.

The editor itself is fine but not VS Code. Windsurf forked VS Code, but it's not a drop-in replacement. Some extensions don't work, some keybindings are subtly different, and the settings sync is its own thing. These are small frictions, but they add up over a full workday.

I don't think Windsurf is bad — it's genuinely impressive technology and the team ships fast. If you're starting fresh and don't have strong VS Code muscle memory, it could work. But for me, the combination of Cursor + Claude Code covers everything Windsurf does, more reliably.

My Actual Daily Workflow

Here's how a typical day looks:

Morning / new feature work: I open Cursor. I use tab completion and Cmd+K for the bulk of writing new code. When I need to scaffold a new component or API route, I use Composer mode. This handles maybe 70% of my coding day.

Complex tasks: When I hit something that requires thinking across the whole codebase — a refactor, a tricky bug, adding a new system that needs to integrate with three existing ones — I switch to the terminal and use Claude Code. I describe the problem at a high level and let it work. This might happen once or twice a day.

Code review: Before committing, I sometimes run the diff through Claude Code to catch things I missed. It's particularly good at spotting inconsistencies — like when you add a new field to a type but forget to handle it in the serialization layer.

Quick checks: For "how does this API work" or "what's the idiomatic way to do X in this framework" — honestly, I just ask Claude Code directly. It's faster than Googling because it knows my specific codebase context.

The Cost Breakdown

Let's talk money, because this matters for freelancers and indie hackers:

| Tool | Plan | Monthly Cost | What You Get | |------|------|-------------|--------------| | Cursor | Pro | $20 | 500 fast requests/mo, unlimited slow | | Claude Code | Max | $100 | Generous daily limits | | Windsurf | Pro | $15 | Unlimited AI flows |

Running Cursor + Claude Code costs me $120/month. That sounds like a lot until you calculate the time saved. Conservatively, these tools save me 1-2 hours per day. At my hourly rate, that's a 10-20x ROI. No question.

If you're budget-constrained, start with just Cursor Pro at $20. It covers the most ground for the money. Add Claude Code when you hit projects complex enough to justify it.

What About GitHub Copilot?

I get asked this constantly. Copilot was my daily tool for two years before I switched to Cursor. The honest answer: Cursor's completions are noticeably better, and the inline edit + Composer features put it in a different league. Copilot is still fine — it's just not the best option anymore.

The Copilot Workspace and agent features they've been shipping are interesting, but they're playing catch-up to where Cursor and Claude Code already are.

Practical Advice

If you're picking your first AI coding tool right now, here's what I'd suggest:

Solo developer or freelancer: Start with Cursor Pro ($20/mo). It gives you the biggest daily productivity boost for the lowest cost. You'll feel the difference in the first week.

Working on complex or large codebases: Add Claude Code. The architectural understanding and multi-file refactoring capability is unmatched. Worth it for any project with more than ~50 files.

Agency or team lead: Cursor for the team, Claude Code for the tech lead who's making architectural decisions. This combo scales well.

Tight budget: Cursor's free tier is surprisingly usable. Claude Code's API billing means you can start small — a few dollars for occasional complex tasks.

Don't try to evaluate these tools with todo apps and weather widgets. Build something real with them. The differences only become clear when you're dealing with actual complexity — messy APIs, legacy code, tight deadlines, and production bugs at midnight.

The Bigger Picture

Six months ago I was skeptical about paying for multiple AI coding tools. Now I can't imagine going back. The combination of Cursor for daily flow-state coding and Claude Code for heavy thinking work has changed how I approach projects.

I take on more ambitious work because the implementation cost dropped. I spend less time on boilerplate and more time on architecture and UX decisions — the stuff that actually matters. And when something breaks in production, I debug faster because I can throw the full error context at Claude Code and get a targeted fix in minutes instead of hours.

These tools aren't replacing developers. They're making good developers faster and more ambitious. That's a meaningful difference.

---

Some links in this article are affiliate links. If you sign up through them, I may earn a small commission at no extra cost to you. I only recommend tools I actually use — this entire article is based on six months of real daily usage.