Guides / Comparisons

Cursor vs Windsurf (Devin Desktop) vs Claude Code: Which AI Coding Tool?

Cursor, Windsurf (now Devin Desktop) and Claude Code compared for developers: how each works, where it runs, pricing as of September 2026, and who each suits.

Mythex Team · 2026-09-29 · 8 min read

Cursor, Windsurf and Claude Code are all AI coding tools for developers, and all three can now plan and make multi-file changes on their own. The practical differences are where they live and how you work with them: Cursor is an AI-first code editor with agents that can also run in the cloud, your terminal and Slack; Windsurf, renamed Devin Desktop by Cognition in June 2026, is an AI editor that now doubles as a command center for Devin agents; Claude Code is Anthropic's coding agent that runs in your terminal, your IDE, a desktop app and the web. Pick the one that matches how you already like to work — many developers use more than one.

This guide is for people who write code. If you want to describe an app and have it built and hosted without working in a codebase, that's a different category of tool — see AI app builder vs AI coding assistant.

The short version

Prices and features change quickly in this category. Check each vendor's page before you commit.

Cursor

Cursor is a desktop code editor built around AI. As of September 2026 its site describes it as a coding agent for building ambitious software, and the product has spread well beyond the editor window.

How you use it. You work in the editor as you would in any IDE, with AI help as you edit and an agent you can hand tasks to. Cursor also offers:

• A CLI, so the agent runs in your terminal.
• Cloud agents that work in parallel on longer tasks without tying up your machine.
• Bugbot, which reviews pull requests on GitHub.
• Slack integration, so you can kick off work from a conversation.
• MCP servers, skills and hooks on paid plans, for connecting tools and customising behaviour.

Cursor lets you choose from several model providers, and it has an "autonomy slider" for how independently the agent works.

Pricing as of September 2026:

• Hobby — free, no credit card, limited agent requests.
• Individual — $20/month, extended agent limits, access to frontier models, cloud agents, MCPs, skills and hooks. Bugbot is on usage-based billing.
• Teams — $40 per user per month, adding centralised billing, shared rules and plugins, Bugbot code reviews, usage analytics, team-wide privacy mode and SAML/OIDC SSO.
• Enterprise — custom pricing with pooled usage, SCIM, audit logs and access controls.

Strengths: a mature "AI inside a graphical editor" experience; model choice; a strong team story with code review and shared rules.

Limits: the editor is where Cursor shines, so if you prefer your existing IDE, you give some of that up. Heavy agent use can push you into usage-based costs, so keep an eye on the dashboard.

Pick Cursor if you want one editor where AI is part of everything you do, and you like choosing between models.

Windsurf, now Devin Desktop

Windsurf was an AI code editor known for its Cascade agent. Cognition, the company behind the Devin agent, now runs it, and on June 2, 2026 renamed it Devin Desktop. Cognition's FAQ says it is "the new name for Windsurf" — the same IDE, editor and features under the Devin brand — and that current plans and pricing continue unchanged. windsurf.com now redirects to devin.ai.

What changed. Cognition says it rewrote the local agent from scratch in Rust. The new agent, Devin Local, replaces Cascade; Cognition says it is up to 30% more token-efficient and supports sub-agents. The legacy Cascade agent was kept available for a transition period. The app also became a place to launch and monitor Devin agents, local and in the cloud, from one screen, with "Spaces" for sharing context and Git worktrees between agents.

How you use it. Much like Cursor: an editor with autocomplete ("Supercomplete"), an agent panel, and MCP support for tools such as Slack, Linear, Notion, Figma, Stripe and Datadog. If you use JetBrains IDEs, Cognition says the Windsurf plugin for IntelliJ IDEA, PyCharm, WebStorm and others remains available.

Pricing as of September 2026 (from devin.ai/pricing, which the old Windsurf pricing URL now points to):

• Free — $0, a light quota, unlimited inline edits and Tab completions.
• Pro — $20/month, higher quotas and frontier models from several providers.
• Max — $200/month, much higher quotas.
• Team — $80/month base plus $40 per user per month, up to 200 users, with centralised billing and an admin dashboard.
• Enterprise — custom, with SAML/OIDC SSO.

Strengths: a capable editor at a similar price to Cursor, a generous free tier for completions, a JetBrains option, and a direct path into Cognition's cloud agents if you want to delegate bigger jobs.

Limits: the product is mid-transition. Names, agents and features have changed recently, so tutorials and forum answers written for "Windsurf" may not match what you see. Expect some churn.

Pick Devin Desktop if you liked Windsurf, want an AI editor with a free tier that covers everyday completions, or plan to use Devin's cloud agents alongside local work.

Claude Code

Claude Code is Anthropic's coding agent. Rather than being an editor, it's an agent you give tasks to — "fix this bug", "add tests for this module", "migrate this service" — and then steer and review.

Where it runs. As of September 2026, Anthropic lists:

• The terminal, installed with a one-line script.
• VS Code and JetBrains extensions.
• A desktop app for macOS, Windows and Linux.
• The web, at claude.ai/code, and the iOS and Android apps.
• Slack and GitHub Actions.

That spread is its main difference from the other two: it isn't tied to one editor, so you can keep your current IDE and add Claude Code to it — including running it inside Cursor's terminal.

Pricing as of September 2026: Claude Code is included with paid Claude plans and not with the free plan.

• Pro — $20/month billed monthly, or $17/month billed annually.
• Max — from $100/month (Anthropic lists a 5x tier at $100 and a 20x tier at $200).
• Team — Standard seats at $20–25 per seat per month and Premium seats at $100–125, with Claude Code included.
• Enterprise — listed from $20 per seat per month billed annually, with usage costs on top.
• API — on a Claude Console account, Claude Code consumes API tokens at standard API rates.

Strengths: works wherever you already are; good at longer, multi-step tasks you delegate and review; the same subscription covers Claude's chat apps too.

Limits: only Anthropic's models. No free tier. If you want a graphical editor built around AI, you'll pair it with one rather than get one.

Pick Claude Code if you're comfortable in a terminal, want to keep your current editor, and like to hand off well-defined tasks and review the diff.

Also worth knowing: GitHub Copilot

GitHub Copilot isn't in the title, but it's the tool many developers compare against. As of September 2026 it has a free tier and paid individual plans starting with Pro at $10/month, with higher tiers at $39 and $100 a month. It is designed to work inside editors you already use, which makes it a low-friction option if you don't want to change editors at all.

How to choose

Ask yourself three questions.

1. Do you want a new editor?

• Yes → Cursor or Devin Desktop.
• No → Claude Code (in your terminal or IDE) or GitHub Copilot.

2. How much do you want to delegate?

• Mostly help as you type, with occasional agent tasks → any of them; Cursor and Devin Desktop make this very smooth.
• Whole tasks you review afterwards → Claude Code, Cursor's cloud agents, or Devin's cloud agents.

3. Does model choice matter?

• Yes → Cursor or Devin Desktop, which offer models from several providers.
• You're happy with Claude → Claude Code.

A common setup is an AI editor for day-to-day work plus an agent for bigger, well-scoped jobs. Try each on a real task in your own repo for a few days — that tells you more than any feature table.

Where Mythex fits (briefly)

Mythex is not an AI coding assistant; it's an AI app builder. You describe an app in chat, it writes and runs the code in a cloud sandbox with a live preview, can add a Postgres database, and publishes to a public URL. It's aimed at people who want a working web app without setting up a project, not at developers editing an existing repo.

The overlap is that Mythex exposes an MCP server, so Cursor or Claude can connect to it and build in a Mythex cloud sandbox with preview and publish included (tool calls need a Pro account). See MCP in the Mythex docs and our Mythex vs Cursor page if that's useful. Otherwise, the three tools above are the right comparison for day-to-day coding.

How we compared

We compared the publicly stated features and prices on each vendor's own website, pricing page and documentation as of September 2026, including Cognition's announcement and FAQ about the Windsurf rename. We did not run benchmarks or measure output quality, and we left out claims we couldn't confirm on the vendors' own sites. Pricing and plan names in this category change often, so check the vendor pages before you decide.

If you're weighing whether to write the code yourself at all, hire a developer or build with AI covers that decision, and what is vibe coding explains the term you'll see around all of these tools.