Ask HN: Who is still using Windsurf and why?

10 points by mak8 60 days ago | 8 comments

Most devs I know moved to Cursor or Codex. But I still see Windsurf mentioned here and there.

I get why someone might stick with it — JetBrains support, slightly cheaper, decent on large codebases. But after the Cognition acquisition I wasn't sure it had a future.

So genuinely curious, are you still on Windsurf? What's keeping you there? And has anything made you regret not switching?

dennisjoseph 59 days ago |

I’ve been using the Codeium(now Windsurf) plugin for Vim for a long time and it works really well — primarily for autocomplete. With Windsurf, you can bring your own keys (BYOK), and those keys cover autocomplete as well. That means full control over your API usage across every integration, including Vim.

So on Vim, I get autocomplete powered by Windsurf using my own cloud keys — which as far as I know is not available in Cursor or Zed.

The other advantage with Windsurf is that BYOK keys work across prompts, agents, and autocomplete. In contrast, Cursor’s autocomplete runs on their own native model and requires a paid subscription — BYOK doesn’t cover it. Same story with Zed. This is the main reason Windsurf remains my primary IDE.

PreciousH 60 days ago |

Isn't windsurf now antigravity? because i still used antigravity for a while this year because of how the agent can natively try to test web pages using chrome which helps it find UI bugs,but i use mostly claude code now though

xpnsec 60 days ago | |

I think Windsurf is to Antigravity as Atom was to VSCode

mak8 60 days ago | |

Wait, they rebranded to Antigravity? I had no idea.

coldtrait 60 days ago | | |

The team behind Windsurf was acquired by Google, but Windsurf remains its own independent IDE somehow.

mak8 60 days ago | | |

Just checked again, still looks like it's called Windsurf to me.

miravmehta 59 days ago | |

They are different. Antigravity is by Google, another one is not.

jf22 59 days ago |

I kept a personal license for while because I thought Windsurf kept memories a little better than Claude.

But now since I use Claude at work I switched to keep my home and work stacks similar.