Cursor vs Windsurf

as AI assistants see them, week of 2026-09-14

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Cursor comes out well ahead of Windsurf, with an overall score of 66 versus 25. Cursor shows up in 57 of 70 answers, Windsurf in 28 of 70. Both get named in every answer to "What are the top AI coding assistants in 2026?", but Cursor also sweeps questions on reliable code, whole-codebase agents, value for money, and free tools, while Windsurf never gets a mention for reliability, testing, beginners, or PR review. Head to head, Cursor is named more often in 15 of 20 shared questions, Windsurf in none, with 5 ties. Gemini rates them closest: 90 for Cursor, 54 for Windsurf.

Head to head

metric	Cursor	Windsurf
score	66	25
questions won	18	11

By assistant

Cursor

assistant	score	named in, this week	usual spot, this week
ChatGPT	71	90% of answers	#2.8
Claude	56	75% of answers	#3.2
Gemini	90	100% of answers	#1.7
Perplexity	61	70% of answers	#2.0

Windsurf

assistant	score	named in, this week	usual spot, this week
ChatGPT	11	20% of answers	#7.0
Claude	26	45% of answers	#5.9
Gemini	54	80% of answers	#4.3
Perplexity	24	35% of answers	#4.0

Where they differ

Only Cursor gets named for

Which AI coding assistant is best for professional developers?
Which AI coding tool writes the most reliable code?
Which AI coding assistant is best for large codebases?
Which AI coding tool is best for writing tests?
What's the best AI coding assistant for beginners learning to code?
What's the best AI tool to review pull requests automatically?
What's the best open-source AI coding assistant?

Only Windsurf gets named for

nothing exclusive

More comparisons

Not sold on either?

Scores count how often each assistant names a product, weighted by position. How the score works · Full AI coding assistants leaderboard