Windsurf vs Zed
Read from each vendor’s own pages last night, so it does not go stale the way a written comparison does.
Before you read on · Acquired since 14 July 2025
Windsurf was acquired by Cognition and is no longer independent.
Acquired by Cognition in 2025 after the Google deal took the founding team; roughly $82M ARR at acquisition. Every "Cursor vs Windsurf" page written before the acquisition describes a company that no longer exists independently.
Measured — counted from real repositories, nightlyAsserted — read from the vendor docs, dated
| Compared on | Windsurf | Zed |
|---|---|---|
| Asserted — what each vendor publishes about itself | ||
| Category | IDE | IDE |
| Vendor | Cognition | Zed Industries |
| Status | Acquired | Active |
| How it charges | Subscription | Hybrid |
| Entry price | Not published as tiers | Free, then $10 / mo |
| Plans | Cognition publishes no pricing page for Windsurf, so there are no tiers to compare. |
|
| Default model | None — you choose | None — you choose |
| Your own key | No — bundled only | Yes |
| Source | Proprietary | Open source · GPL-3.0 |
| Measured — counted on the last nightly run | ||
| Stars | not measured | 87.9K |
| Maintenance | not measured | 94/100 |
| Days since last push | not measured | 0 |
| Top model in it | not measured | not measured |
| Its volume | not measured | not measured |
What has changed on either of them
2 entries| What changed | Kind | Was, and is now | Confidence | Occurred |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Zed changed the quota wording on its pricing pageZed | Quota change | limits 5 tokenlimits 5 token, unlimited accepted edit predictions, unlimited edit predictions, unlimited edit predictions role-based, unlimited use with your api keys or | low | |
| Windsurf acquired by CognitionWindsurf | Acquisition | Acquired · acquired by Cognition | high |
