The main alternative to Cursor, and the one that leans hardest into agents. Windsurf is also a VS Code-based editor, but its flow assumes the AI is doing most of the writing: it tracks what you and the agent have each changed, keeps that shared context current, and runs long multi-step edits with less prompting than a chat panel needs. For greenfield work and large sweeping changes it often feels smoother than a chat-plus-diff workflow.
Reviewers tend to split between the two on taste rather than capability, so this is a case for trying both free tiers on your own project for an afternoon. Windsurf is also the cheaper of the two at the entry paid tier, which matters if you are paying yourself.