The way we write code has fundamentally changed.
In 2025, AI coding tools were glorified autocomplete engines. You typed, they predicted the next few tokens, and you hit Tab. Useful? Sure. Revolutionary? Not quite.
2026 is different. We’ve entered what the industry is calling the “Agentic Era” — where AI doesn’t just suggest code, it plans, executes, tests, and deploys entire features while you review the output. MCP (Model Context Protocol) hit 97 million monthly SDK downloads and became the connectivity standard for AI agents. Cursor crossed $500M ARR. Google dropped Antigravity out of nowhere. And Claude Code evolved from a research experiment into a production powerhouse.
If you’re a developer trying to figure out which tool to bet on, this is the comparison you need.
I’ve spent the last several months working across all four platforms — building production AI systems, shipping features, and burning through more credits than I’d like to admit. Here’s what I found.
Quick Comparison Table
| Feature | Claude Code | Cursor | Windsurf | Google Antigravity |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Type | Terminal-based CLI agent | AI-native IDE (VS Code fork) | AI-native IDE (VS Code fork) | Agent-first IDE (VS Code fork) |
| Primary Model | Claude Sonnet 4.5 / Opus 4.5 | Multi-model (GPT, Claude, Gemini) | SWE-1 + Multi-model | Gemini 3 Pro / Flash / Deep Think |
| Starting Price | $20/mo (Pro) | $20/mo (Pro) | Free / $15/mo (Pro) | Free (Public Preview) |
| MCP Support | Native (client + server) | Via extensions | Limited | Limited |
| Background Agents | Yes (headless mode) | Yes (Background Agents) | No | Yes (Agent Manager) |
| Browser Automation | Via MCP | No | No | Built-in Chrome integration |
| IDE Lock-in | None (works with any editor) | Yes (Cursor IDE only) | Yes (Windsurf IDE only) | Yes (Antigravity IDE only) |
| Best For | Terminal-first devs, CI/CD, production systems | Daily coding, large codebases, teams | Budget-conscious devs, prototyping | Greenfield projects, multi-agent workflows |
Claude Code: The Terminal Powerhouse
What it is: An agentic coding tool that lives in your terminal. No GUI. No fancy IDE. Just you, your terminal, and an AI that understands your entire codebase.
Why developers love it:
Claude Code doesn’t try to replace your editor. It works alongside VS Code, Neovim, JetBrains, or whatever you’re already using. This “Unix philosophy” approach means it’s composable and scriptable — you can pipe it into CI/CD pipelines, run it in headless mode for automated tasks, and chain it with other terminal tools.
The MCP integration is where Claude Code truly shines. As both an MCP client and server, it can pull context from Google Drive, Figma, Slack, Jira, and any custom MCP server you build. When I’m working on a feature, I can tell Claude Code to read the design spec from Figma, check the ticket requirements from Linear, and implement the changes — all without leaving the terminal.
The real story is the model quality. With Opus 4.5 on the Max plan, Claude Code achieves roughly 59.3% accuracy on the Terminal-Bench coding benchmark — the highest of any AI coding tool tested. For complex, multi-file refactoring tasks, nothing else comes close.
Real-world example: Rakuten’s engineering team used Claude Code to implement a complex activation vector extraction method across a 12.5-million-line codebase spanning Python, C++, and CUDA. The AI worked autonomously for seven hours. The developer didn’t write a single line of code — just provided occasional guidance. The final implementation achieved 99.9% numerical accuracy.
The catch:
It’s a terminal tool. If you’re not comfortable living in the command line, the learning curve is steep. There’s no visual diff viewer, no inline code suggestions, no drag-and-drop. You type commands, Claude Code executes them, and you review the results.
The pricing can also sneak up on you. Pro at $20/month gives you Sonnet 4.5 with reasonable limits, but power users will hit rate limits within a few hours of intensive coding. Max at $100-$200/month unlocks Opus 4.5 and higher limits, but that’s a significant monthly cost.
Pricing breakdown:
- Free: Basic Claude chat, no Claude Code access
- Pro ($20/mo): Claude Code with Sonnet 4.5, ~45 messages per 5-hour window
- Max ($100/mo): 5x Pro usage, Opus 4.5 access
- Max ($200/mo): 20x Pro usage, Opus 4.5, priority access
- API: Sonnet 4.5 at $3 input / $15 output per million tokens (90% cache discount available)
Cursor: The IDE That Developers Can’t Stop Talking About
What it is: A full AI-native IDE built as a VS Code fork, with AI baked into every interaction — from autocomplete to multi-file refactoring to autonomous background agents.
Why developers love it:
Cursor feels like home if you use VS Code. Import your settings, extensions, and keybindings — everything carries over. But underneath, it’s a fundamentally different beast. The AI doesn’t just complete your current line; it understands your entire repository structure, coding patterns, and architectural decisions.
The Background Agents feature, introduced in 2025, was a game-changer. You can dispatch agents to work on tasks independently while you focus on something else. Need a bug fixed, tests written, and a PR created? Spawn an agent, and it runs in the background while you keep coding. By mid-2025, over 50% of Fortune 500 companies had adopted Cursor, including Nvidia, Uber, and Adobe.
Model flexibility is another massive advantage. Unlike Claude Code (locked to Anthropic models) or Antigravity (locked to Gemini), Cursor lets you choose from GPT-5.2, Claude Sonnet 4.5, Claude Opus 4.5, Gemini, and more. Different models excel at different tasks — Claude for complex reasoning, GPT for speed, Gemini for multimodal — and Cursor lets you switch on the fly.
The Tab autocomplete feature deserves special mention. Cursor built their own proprietary model specifically optimized for code completion. It’s fast, context-aware, and eerily accurate. Multiple developers I’ve spoken with say it saves them 30-40% of their typing time.
The catch:
Pricing confusion. Cursor recently shifted from a simple request-based model to a usage-based credit system, and the developer community was not happy. Your $20/month Pro credit pool can be exhausted surprisingly fast if you’re using premium models like Claude Opus or GPT-5.2. Heavy users report their credits depleting within a single day of intensive work.
Performance is the other concern. On larger codebases, Cursor can lag or freeze. The AI features consume significant resources, and if you’re working on a monorepo with millions of lines, you’ll feel the slowdown.
Pricing breakdown:
- Hobby (Free): 50 premium requests, 500 free model requests per month
- Pro ($20/mo): Usage-based credits, ~225 Claude Sonnet requests or ~500 GPT requests per month
- Ultra ($200/mo): 20x model usage, priority features
- Teams ($40/user/mo): SSO, admin controls, centralized billing
- Enterprise: Custom pricing, SCIM, audit logs, pooled credits
Windsurf: The Budget-Friendly Contender
What it is: An agentic IDE from Codeium (now acquired by Google for $2.4 billion) featuring “Cascade” — an AI system that combines deep codebase understanding with multi-model access and autonomous task execution.
Why developers love it:
Windsurf positions itself as the most developer-friendly option in terms of pricing and user experience. Multiple developers switching from Cursor report that Windsurf’s UI feels more intuitive and less cluttered. The pricing overhaul — moving from a confusing “flow action credits” system to a clearer token-based model — earned significant goodwill in the community.
The Cascade feature is Windsurf’s crown jewel. It’s not just autocomplete or chat — it’s an agentic system that understands your full codebase context, uses a breadth of advanced tools, and maintains real-time awareness of your actions. You start a refactor, Cascade continues it. You write a component, Cascade sets up the tests.
Windsurf also ships with its own in-house SWE-1 model family, optimized specifically for software engineering tasks. The SWE-1 Lite variant is free to use (0 credits), making it an excellent option for developers who want AI assistance without burning through their credit pool on every interaction.
The Memories feature is genuinely useful for long-term projects. After roughly 48 hours of working in a codebase, Windsurf learns your architecture patterns, naming conventions, and coding style. In testing on a 50,000-line React/Node.js project, Memories-informed suggestions matched existing patterns 78% of the time.
The catch:
Speed. Windsurf is noticeably slower than Cursor in suggestion generation. For developers working under tight deadlines or requiring immediate feedback, this latency can be frustrating. Complex multi-step scripts sometimes require fallback to manual typing.
The credit system, while improved, still has surprises. Using premium third-party models like Claude Sonnet burns credits at a much faster rate than the built-in SWE-1 models. Heavy users report running out of monthly credits within the first week, requiring add-on purchases that inflate the real cost beyond the advertised $15/month.
Also worth noting: Google acquired Codeium/Windsurf, and much of the Windsurf team’s technology has been absorbed into Google Antigravity. The long-term future of Windsurf as a standalone product is uncertain.
Pricing breakdown:
- Free: Unlimited Tab completions, limited Cascade interactions, 1 deploy/day
- Pro ($15/mo): 500 prompt credits, access to GPT-5.2, Claude, Gemini, 5 deploys/day
- Teams ($25/user/mo): Admin dashboards, centralized billing, SSO/RBAC
- Enterprise: Custom pricing, advanced security features
Google Antigravity: The Wild Card That Changes Everything
What it is: An “agent-first” IDE powered by Gemini 3, announced November 2025 alongside Google co-founder Sergey Brin’s return to active product development. It’s not an evolution of the traditional IDE — it’s a reimagination of what an IDE should be in the age of AI agents.
Why developers are excited:
Antigravity introduces a concept no other tool has: the Manager View. While every other IDE gives you a sidebar chat panel, Antigravity gives you a mission control center where you can spawn, orchestrate, and observe multiple AI agents working in parallel across different workspaces.
Think about that for a moment. Instead of asking one AI to fix one bug, you dispatch five agents to work on five different bugs simultaneously. Each agent plans its approach, executes the changes, runs tests, and generates “Artifacts” — verifiable deliverables like task lists, implementation plans, screenshots, and even browser recordings — so you can review their work without reading through raw tool calls.
The built-in browser automation is another unique capability. Antigravity agents can directly interact with Chrome, test UI changes, validate web applications, and provide visual proof of their work. No other AI coding tool offers this natively.
And then there’s the price: free. During the public preview (which is currently ongoing), Antigravity is completely free with generous rate limits on Gemini 3 Pro. It also supports Anthropic’s Claude Sonnet 4.5 and OpenAI’s GPT-OSS model, giving you multi-model access at zero cost.
The “Skills” system lets you codify your best practices — code review guidelines, commit formats, license headers — so agents instinctively follow your team’s conventions without repeated prompting. Combined with the knowledge base that learns from every conversation, Antigravity gets genuinely smarter the more you use it.
The catch:
It’s new. Very new. Announced in November 2025 and still in public preview, Antigravity lacks the battle-tested stability of Cursor or the production maturity of Claude Code. Edge cases, crashes, and unexpected agent behavior are common.
The agent-first paradigm is powerful but not universal. It works exceptionally well for greenfield projects and standard workflows — web apps, dashboards, CRUD tools, API glue. But for production-critical systems, deeply specialized domains (embedded systems, engine development), or legacy codebases with decades of accumulated complexity, the agents struggle with “unknown unknowns.”
Enterprise features are coming but aren’t here yet. No SSO, no audit logs, no data residency controls. If you’re an enterprise team evaluating tools, Antigravity isn’t ready for you today.
And the elephant in the room: the Windsurf acquisition. Google acquired Codeium for $2.4 billion, and Antigravity heavily builds on Windsurf’s technology. If you’re currently invested in Windsurf, the writing is on the wall — Google is steering you toward Antigravity.
Pricing breakdown:
- Public Preview: Free with generous Gemini 3 rate limits
- Expected Pro (~$20/mo): Higher limits, priority access (not yet announced)
- Expected Enterprise (~$40-60/user/mo): SSO, data residency, admin controls (not yet announced)
So, Which One Should You Pick?
Here’s my honest take after months of using all four:
Choose Claude Code if:
- You live in the terminal and don’t want an IDE dictating your workflow
- You’re building production AI systems and need the deepest model quality (Opus 4.5)
- MCP integration is critical for your workflow (Jira, Figma, Slack, Google Drive, custom tools)
- You need to integrate AI coding into CI/CD pipelines and automated workflows
- You value the Unix philosophy: composable, scriptable, editor-agnostic
Choose Cursor if:
- You’re a VS Code user who wants AI deeply integrated into your daily coding
- You work on large, complex codebases and need the best repository-wide context understanding
- Model flexibility matters — you want to switch between Claude, GPT, and Gemini based on the task
- You’re part of a team and need collaboration features, SSO, and admin controls today
- Background agents for parallel task execution fit your workflow
Choose Windsurf if:
- Budget is your primary concern — $15/month is the cheapest paid option
- You’re a solo developer or small team focused on rapid prototyping
- The Memories feature (learning your codebase patterns over time) appeals to you
- You want a solid AI IDE without the pricing drama of Cursor’s credit system
- You’re comfortable with a tool whose long-term roadmap is uncertain post-acquisition
Choose Google Antigravity if:
- You want to try the most advanced agent-first paradigm at zero cost
- Multi-agent orchestration (dispatching parallel agents) matches how you think about development
- You’re building greenfield projects where speed-to-prototype matters more than stability
- Browser automation and visual verification are valuable for your workflow
- You’re willing to accept early-stage rough edges in exchange for cutting-edge capabilities
The Real Answer: Use More Than One
Here’s what I actually do in practice: I use Claude Code for complex refactoring, production deployments, and anything that touches CI/CD or MCP integrations. I use Cursor for daily feature development where I want the visual IDE experience with inline diffs and background agents. And I keep Antigravity open for rapid prototyping and greenfield experiments where I want to dispatch multiple agents and see results fast.
The best developers in 2026 aren’t loyal to one tool. They understand the strengths and limitations of each and switch based on the task at hand. That’s the real skill in the agentic era — not writing code faster, but orchestrating AI to write code for you.
The IDE wars are just getting started. And honestly? Developers have never had it this good.
Frequently Asked Questions
Can I use Claude Code inside Cursor or Windsurf? Yes. Claude Code has native VS Code extensions that work inside Cursor and Windsurf. You can run Claude Code in the integrated terminal while using the IDE’s own AI features for inline suggestions.
Is Google Antigravity really free? During the public preview, yes. Google provides generous rate limits on Gemini 3 Pro at no cost. However, pricing tiers are expected once it exits preview, likely around $20/month for Pro.
Which tool has the best code quality? Based on independent Terminal-Bench testing, Claude Opus 4.5 (available through Claude Code and Cursor) leads with approximately 59.3% overall accuracy. However, accuracy varies dramatically by task difficulty — 65% on easy tasks, dropping to 16% on hard tasks across all tools.
What about GitHub Copilot? Copilot remains excellent for inline autocomplete at $10/month — the most affordable premium option. However, it lacks the agentic capabilities (autonomous task execution, multi-file operations, background agents) that define the 2026 landscape. It’s a great complement to any of the four tools discussed here, not a replacement.
What is MCP and why does it matter? Model Context Protocol is an open standard (now under the Agentic AI Foundation) that lets AI tools connect to external services — GitHub, Slack, Jira, databases, custom APIs. With 97 million monthly SDK downloads, it’s become the “USB-C of AI” — a universal connector. Claude Code has the deepest MCP integration; the other tools are catching up.
Comments