After using Cursor and Claude Code for a few months, and lately I have been testing Kiro, I have been very curious about Windsurf. Podcasts I have listened, YouTube videos I have watched, articles I have read, they all praise Windsurf’s more polished UI compared to Cursor.
I signed up to Windsurf and opened the project I’ve been working on my free time (a Career Path Management System), and I wanted to use Windsurf specifically to add a new tab called ‘Job Viewer’, which basically shows a left navigation panel with the seniority levels, and then the main content is the full Job Description as per the setup of the job.
I went straight to planning mode. I drafted my requirements in a similar fashion as I do in Claude Code and Kiro. My very first impression was indeed, the UI looked more polished. Not a whole lot compared to Cursor but I would agree with that. The second impression was not good, though. It basically took my own text, and split it in “tasks”. Maybe I’m exaggerating and it did a bit more research and created a few more tasks, however the overall feeling is that Kiro’s spec driven development is superior without a doubt.
I would also say that Claude Code’s planning mode is also better. It does not automatically create the file with the spec/tasks, but does a better job at planning, that it’s almost unnecessary to create the file anyway.
I’m probably being unfair at judging Windsurf for a feature they say it’s in beta mode, but I honestly feel the DX is poor, IMHO. Very poor compared to Kiro’s approach which is super buggy but still better.
Another frustration that is unrelated but still piles up is the fact that this is a very simple feature, and even though I supposedly have a 14-day trial, I couldn’t accomplish the work because I ran out of credit limit or something. Not sure if it was a bug but hey, if you are going to offer a trial period, let the user test it all the way, or at least give them reasonable bandwidth.