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Ask HN: Cursor or Windsurf?

310 points skarat | 9 comments | 12 May 25 04:41 UTC | HN request time: 1.832s | source | bottom

Things are changing so fast with these vscode forks I m barely able to keep up. Which one are you guys using currently? How does the autocomplete etc, compare between the two?
1. heymax054 ◴[12 May 25 10:16 UTC] No.43961400[source]▶
90% of their features could fit inside a VS Code extension.

There are already a few popular open-source extension doing 90%+ of what Cursor is doing - Cline, Roo Code (a fork of Cline), Kilo Code (a fork of Roo Code and something I help maintain).

replies(2): >>43961415 #>>43966500 #
2. wrasee ◴[12 May 25 10:18 UTC] No.43961415[source]▶
The other 10% being what differentiates them in the market :)
replies(1): >>43961424 #
3. heymax054 ◴[12 May 25 10:19 UTC] No.43961424[source]▶
Of course. Are they useful enough though for people to install an entirely new software?
replies(2): >>43961790 #>>43981744 #
4. gkbrk ◴[12 May 25 11:19 UTC] No.43961790{3}[source]▶
Since installing entirely new software is just downloading Cursor.AppImage from the official website and double-clicking on it, it's not a large hassle for most users.

If you're on Arch, there's even an AUR package, so it's even less steps than that.

replies(1): >>43963270 #
5. bryanlarsen ◴[12 May 25 14:21 UTC] No.43963270{4}[source]▶
appImage is useless for development since it only has access to globally installed development tools and environments.
replies(1): >>43966523 #
6. Tokumei-no-hito ◴[12 May 25 19:08 UTC] No.43966500[source]▶
I’m curious what the motivation is for all these sub-forks. why not just upstream to cline?
7. gkbrk ◴[12 May 25 19:11 UTC] No.43966523{5}[source]▶
That's not true.

AppImages aren't sandboxed and they can access the rest of the system just fine. After all, they're just a regular SquashFS directory that get mounted into a /tmp mount and then executed from there.

replies(1): >>43966660 #
8. bryanlarsen ◴[12 May 25 19:26 UTC] No.43966660{6}[source]▶
So you're saying that the Cursor appImage is done poorly? I'd believe that.
9. satvikpendem ◴[14 May 25 07:14 UTC] No.43981744{3}[source]▶
Cursor itself is making 200 million a year now so I presume yes.