Cline?
... if you can afford it. Pay per token can get expensive with large context.
Ask HN: Cursor or Windsurf?
311–320 of 410 posts
Re: Ask HN: Cursor or Windsurf?
#312Has anyone had any joy using a local model? Or is it still too slow? On something like a M4 Macbook Pro can local models replace the connection to OpenAi/Anthropic?
It's not so much that it's slow, it's that local models are still a far cry from what SOTA cloud LLM providers offer. Depending on what you're actually doing, a local model might be good enough.
Re: Ask HN: Cursor or Windsurf?
#313hijacking this thread: Whats the best AI tool for NeoVim ?
I’ve really been enjoying the combination of CodeCompanion with Gemini 2.5 for chat, Copilot for completion, and Claude Code/OpenAI Codex for agentic workflows.
I had always wanted to get comfortable with Vim, but it never seemed worth the time commitment, especially with how much I’ve been using AI tools since 2021 when Copilot went into beta. But recently I became so frustrated by Cursor’s bugs and tab completion performance regressions that I disabled completions, and started checking out alternatives.
This particular combination of plugins has done a nice job of mostly replicating the Cursor functionality I used routinely. Some areas are more pleasant to use, some are a bit worse, but it’s nice overall. And I mostly get to use my own API keys and control the prompts and when things change.
I still need to try out Zed’s new features, but I’ve been enjoying daily driving this setup a lot.
Re: Ask HN: Cursor or Windsurf?
#314Earlier quoted context omitted.
To be fair, I think the most value is added by Agent modes, not autocomplete. And I agree that AI-autocomplete is really quite annoying, personally I disable it too. But coding agents can indeed save some time writing well-defined code and be of great help when debugging. But then again, when they don't work on a first prompt, I would likely just write the thing in Vim myself instead of trying to convince the agent.…
Are you using these in your day job to complete real world tasks or in greenfield projects? I simply cannot see how I can tell an agent to implement anything I have to do in a real day job unless it's a feature so simple I could do it in a few minutes. Even those the AI will likely screw it up since it sucks at dealing with existing code, best practices, library versions, etc.
SOTA LLMs are broadly much better at autonomous coding than they were even a few months ago. But also, it really depends on what it is exactly you're working on, and what tech is involved. Things are great if you're writing Python or TypeScript, less so with C++, and even less so with Rust and other emerging technologies.
Re: Ask HN: Cursor or Windsurf?
#315I use Cursor as my base editor + Cline as my main agentic tool. I have not tried Windsurf so alas I can't comment here but the Cursor + Cline combo works brilliantly for me: * Cursor's Cmk-K edit-inline feature (with Claude 3.7 as my base model there) works brilliantly for "I just need this one line/method fixed/improved" * Cursor's tab-complete (neé SuperMaven) is great and better than any other I've used. * Cline w…
Clines agent work is better than Cursors own?
Re: Ask HN: Cursor or Windsurf?
#316Earlier quoted context omitted.
That's what I was afraid of, I'd never think anyone submitting AI-generated code wouldn't first read it themselves before asking others to review it!
I read it myself. But if one person could catch every bug in code then we wouldn't need PR reviews at all would we?
Well yes, but I personally would never submit a PRr I could use the excuse, "sorry, AI wrote those parts, that's why this PR has now bugs than usual".
All that to say that the base of your argument is still correct: AI really isn't saving all that much time since everyone has to proof-read it so much in order to not increase the number of PR bugs from using it in the first place.
Re: Ask HN: Cursor or Windsurf?
#317I am retired now, out of the game, but I also suggest an alternative: running locally with open-codex, Ollama, and the qwen3 models and gemma3, and when necessary use something hosted like Gemini 2.5 Pro without an IDE.
I like to strike a balance between coding from scratch and using AI.
Re: Ask HN: Cursor or Windsurf?
#318Earlier quoted context omitted.
This is very inexpensive. What is your workflow and savings techniques! I can spend $10/h or more with very short sessions and few files.
Huh, I didn't configure anything for saving, honestly. I just add the whole repo and do my stuff. How do you get to $10/h? I probably couldn't even provoke this. I assume we have a very different workflow.
do you use any tool to add the whole repo?
Re: Ask HN: Cursor or Windsurf?
#319For daily work - neither. They basically promote the style of work where you end up with mediocre code that you don't fully understand, and with time the situation gets worse. I get much better result by asking specific question to a model that has huge context (Gemini) and analyzing the generated code carefully. That's the opposite of the style of work you get with Cursor or Windsurf. Is it less efficient? If you ar…
I agree! I like local tools, mostly, use Gemini 2.5 Pro when actually needed and useful, and do a lot of manual coding.
Re: Ask HN: Cursor or Windsurf?
#320For daily work - neither. They basically promote the style of work where you end up with mediocre code that you don't fully understand, and with time the situation gets worse. I get much better result by asking specific question to a model that has huge context (Gemini) and analyzing the generated code carefully. That's the opposite of the style of work you get with Cursor or Windsurf. Is it less efficient? If you ar…
But how do you dump your entire code base into Gemini? Literally all I want is a good model with my entire code base in its context window.
I wrote a simple Python script that I run in any directory that gets the context I usually need and copies to the clipboard/paste buffer. A short custom script let's you adjust to your own needs.