Windsurf (now Devin Desktop)
The agentic IDE that was Codeium, then Windsurf, now Cognition’s Devin Desktop, a command centre for coding agents.
Best forDevelopers who want a full, agent-native desktop IDE and the freedom to run several coding agents — including third-party ones — side by side.
Our verdict
Windsurf was one of the best agentic IDEs of its generation, and as Devin Desktop it is now something more ambitious: a vendor-neutral command centre where local and cloud agents, Cognition’s own plus Claude Agent, Codex and Gemini CLI via the open ACP, run inside one polished editor.
The former Windsurf, reborn as Cognition’s open multi-agent IDE, impressive and vendor-neutral, if you can stomach three rebrands in two years.
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What's great
- Mature, familiar VS Code-style IDE with strong autocomplete and whole-repo context.
- The open Agent Client Protocol lets you run multiple vendors’ agents in one editor, a genuine differentiator.
- Free tier and $20 Pro entry point, shared with Devin’s cloud agents.
Watch-outs
- Heavy brand and product churn: Codeium → Windsurf → Devin Desktop, and the original Cascade agent was retired on 1 July 2026, disruptive for teams that depend on it daily.
- Now tied to Cognition’s roadmap and its unified quota billing; the independent Windsurf identity is gone.
- As an installed desktop IDE it is a heavier commitment than a VS Code extension, and its default SWE models trail the top frontier models on the hardest tasks.
- On 2026-03-19, Windsurf dropped its flexible monthly credit pool for rate-limited daily/weekly quotas and raised the Pro plan from $15 to $20/month, usage now resets on a schedule rather than pooling for one big push, which drew real user backlash over reduced flexibility.
Also note: The Cascade agent name is deprecated; new work uses Devin Local, so older tutorials referencing Cascade are out of date. · It is an interactive desktop editor, not a headless CI agent; for async delegation use Devin’s cloud agent.
What is Windsurf (now Devin Desktop)?
Windsurf is the agentic code editor that began as Codeium, rebranded to Windsurf, and, after Cognition acquired it in 2025, became Devin Desktop in June 2026. It is a standalone IDE (a VS Code-style editor) rather than a plugin, built around an in-editor coding agent with deep whole-repository context. Under Cognition it has been repositioned from a single-agent editor into an “agent command centre”: the app now opens on a Kanban board for managing many local and cloud agents, with the full IDE behind it. Its original Cascade agent was retired on 1 July 2026 in favour of Devin Local.
What does Windsurf (now Devin Desktop) do?
You code in a familiar VS Code-style editor while an agent works alongside you: it reads across the whole repository, plans multi-file changes, applies reviewable diffs, runs commands and uses features like Supercomplete (predictive multi-line completion) and Fast Context (fast codebase retrieval). Since the Devin Desktop rebrand, the editor opens on an Agent Command Center, a Kanban-style board and Sessions view for launching, watching and steering multiple agents, both local and cloud, from one window. It ships the open Agent Client Protocol (ACP), so third-party agents such as Devin Cloud, Devin Local, Claude Agent, Codex and Gemini CLI can run as first-class citizens inside the editor rather than being locked to one vendor. “Spaces” share context across agents using Git worktrees so several agents can work in parallel without clobbering each other. It runs on Cognition’s SWE models by default and can route to frontier models from Anthropic, OpenAI and Google. Your Windsurf account, plan, extensions, keybindings and MCP connections carried over automatically in the rebrand.
Key features
- Agent Command Center: The app opens on a Kanban board for launching and steering many local and cloud agents from one place, with the full IDE behind it.
- Agent Client Protocol (ACP): An open editor-agent standard that lets Devin, Claude Agent, Codex and Gemini CLI run natively inside the editor instead of being locked to one vendor.
- Supercomplete & Fast Context: Predictive multi-line completion plus fast whole-codebase retrieval to ground the agent’s edits.
- Spaces (Git worktrees): Shares context across agents using Git worktrees so several can work in parallel without conflicts.
What are Windsurf (now Devin Desktop)'s use cases?
- Interactive pair-coding: A developer edits in the IDE while the agent handles cross-file plumbing and predictive completion.
- Orchestrating multiple agents: Run several local and cloud agents in parallel from the command centre and merge their work through Spaces.
- Vendor-neutral agent workbench: Use Claude Agent, Codex or Gemini CLI side by side inside one editor via ACP.
What does Windsurf (now Devin Desktop) integrate with?
- Git & GitHub
- MCP servers
- Third-party agents via ACP (Claude Agent, Codex, Gemini CLI)
- Model providers — Anthropic, OpenAI, Google
Why use Windsurf (now Devin Desktop)?
- A polished, mature IDE (the former Windsurf/Codeium) with hundreds of thousands of existing users.
- Vendor-neutral: run and compare multiple coding agents in one editor via the open ACP standard.
- A free tier plus a $20 Pro plan, sharing one subscription with Devin’s cloud agents.
Pros & cons
Pros
- Mature, familiar VS Code-style IDE with strong autocomplete and whole-repo context.
- The open Agent Client Protocol lets you run multiple vendors’ agents in one editor, a genuine differentiator.
- Free tier and $20 Pro entry point, shared with Devin’s cloud agents.
Cons
- Heavy brand and product churn: Codeium → Windsurf → Devin Desktop, and the original Cascade agent was retired on 1 July 2026, disruptive for teams that depend on it daily.
- Now tied to Cognition’s roadmap and its unified quota billing; the independent Windsurf identity is gone.
- As an installed desktop IDE it is a heavier commitment than a VS Code extension, and its default SWE models trail the top frontier models on the hardest tasks.
- On 2026-03-19, Windsurf dropped its flexible monthly credit pool for rate-limited daily/weekly quotas and raised the Pro plan from $15 to $20/month, usage now resets on a schedule rather than pooling for one big push, which drew real user backlash over reduced flexibility.
Limitations
- The Cascade agent name is deprecated; new work uses Devin Local, so older tutorials referencing Cascade are out of date.
- It is an interactive desktop editor, not a headless CI agent; for async delegation use Devin’s cloud agent.
Windsurf (now Devin Desktop) pricing
- FreeFree
- Pro$20 / /month
- Max$200 / /month
- Teams$80 / /month + $40/seat
- EnterpriseCustom
See current pricing on devin.ai ↗Compare Windsurf (now Devin Desktop) alternatives →
Windsurf (now Devin Desktop) specs
Pricing
- Pricing model
- freemium
- Free tier
- ✓ Yes
Capabilities
- Model / LLM
- SWE models + Claude, GPT & Gemini
- Interface
- IDE
- Public API
- ✗ No
- Open source
- ✗ No
Deployment
- Deployment
- Both
Windsurf (now Devin Desktop) review
Windsurf was one of the best agentic IDEs of its generation, and as Devin Desktop it is now something more ambitious: a vendor-neutral command centre where local and cloud agents, Cognition’s own plus Claude Agent, Codex and Gemini CLI via the open ACP, run inside one polished editor. That openness is a real differentiator in a field of walled-garden tools, and the shared free/$20 subscription with Devin makes it easy to try. The cost is turbulence: Codeium became Windsurf, Windsurf became Devin Desktop, and the original Cascade agent was switched off on 1 July 2026, a lot of change for a tool teams use daily. Its default SWE models are also a notch behind frontier models on the hardest tasks, though you can route to those. Pick it if you want an open, multi-agent desktop IDE and are comfortable inside Cognition’s ecosystem; skip it if you want a lightweight editor extension or you specifically wanted the standalone Windsurf that no longer exists.
The former Windsurf, reborn as Cognition’s open multi-agent IDE, impressive and vendor-neutral, if you can stomach three rebrands in two years.
Frequently asked questions
Is Windsurf still called Windsurf?
What happened to Cascade?
Is it free?
Can I run other agents besides Cognition’s?
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