Windsurf
Codeium's agentic IDE with Flows — a visual take on agent steps.
Windsurf (by Codeium) is an AI IDE with a distinctive feature: Flows, which show an agent's reasoning steps visually instead of a wall of text.
What makes it different
- Cascade — the main agent panel; it plans multi-file changes and shows you the plan before editing.
- Flows — a visual timeline of what the agent is thinking and doing (read → plan → edit → verify).
- Supercomplete — fast autocomplete similar to Cursor Tab.
- Previews — built-in browser preview for web apps.
Typical workflow
- Open Cascade with a goal: "Add a settings page with a theme toggle."
- Review the proposed plan.
- Approve; watch it edit files as a step-by-step Flow.
- Test in the built-in preview.
MCP support
Windsurf supports MCP servers under Settings → Advanced → MCP, using the standard JSON config — identical to Claude Desktop and Cursor.
Codeium vs Cursor?
Both are excellent. Windsurf's Flows make it easier to see what the agent is doing (great for learning); Cursor has a larger plugin ecosystem because it's a VS Code fork.
Choose Windsurf if you want transparency into agent reasoning; choose Cursor if you're deep in the VS Code world.