Sublime Text vs. Windsurf

Overview
ProductRatingMost Used ByProduct SummaryStarting Price
Sublime Text
Score 9.2 out of 10
N/A
Sublime Text is a highly customizable text editing solution featuring advanced API, Goto functions, and other features, from Sublime HQ in Sydney.
$80
Windsurf
Score 8.6 out of 10
N/A
Windsurf (formerly Codeium) is an AI dev tool that is self-hosted for security, with features including rapid code autocomplete, in-editor AI chat assistant, repo natural language search, end-to-end data encryption.
$15
per month for 500 prompt credits/month Equivalent to 2,000 GPT-4.1 prompts (4 prompts per credit)
Pricing
Sublime TextWindsurf
Editions & Modules
Business
$80.00
Pro
$15
per month 500 credits/mo
Team
$30
per month per user (500 credits/user/mo)
Enterprise
$60
per month per user (up to 200 users & 1,000 credits/user/mo)
Enterprise (more than 200 uses)
Contact Sales
Offerings
Pricing Offerings
Sublime TextWindsurf
Free Trial
NoYes
Free/Freemium Version
YesYes
Premium Consulting/Integration Services
NoNo
Entry-level Setup FeeNo setup feeNo setup fee
Additional Details
More Pricing Information
Community Pulse
Sublime TextWindsurf
Best Alternatives
Sublime TextWindsurf
Small Businesses
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Score 9.9 out of 10
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Score 9.2 out of 10
Medium-sized Companies
Vim
Vim
Score 9.3 out of 10
PyCharm
PyCharm
Score 9.2 out of 10
Enterprises
Vim
Vim
Score 9.3 out of 10
PyCharm
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Score 9.2 out of 10
All AlternativesView all alternativesView all alternatives
User Ratings
Sublime TextWindsurf
Likelihood to Recommend
9.2
(56 ratings)
8.0
(1 ratings)
Likelihood to Renew
10.0
(1 ratings)
-
(0 ratings)
Usability
8.9
(4 ratings)
8.0
(1 ratings)
Availability
9.0
(1 ratings)
-
(0 ratings)
Performance
10.0
(1 ratings)
-
(0 ratings)
Support Rating
9.3
(11 ratings)
-
(0 ratings)
Configurability
10.0
(1 ratings)
-
(0 ratings)
Ease of integration
7.0
(1 ratings)
-
(0 ratings)
Product Scalability
8.0
(1 ratings)
-
(0 ratings)
User Testimonials
Sublime TextWindsurf
Likelihood to Recommend
Sublime HQ
My CMS has a small window in which I can edit custom HTML/CSS. It can be expanded some, but not as much as I would like. It also displays all code as dark text on a white background. On a page where I am doing extensive custom coding, it is helpful to see it in a larger window and in a color-coded display so that I don't have to strain my eyes as hard. Especially when I'm trying to scan for specific elements and target issues and so that I don't have to scroll endlessly in a tiny window.
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Cognition AI, Inc.
If you already have technical knowledge and understanding of coding, Windsurf could be a valuable platform to debug and rewrite code. It was helpful to me to expand coding, since I am not a traditionally programmer. I was able to enhance my base code and functionality much quicker than manually trying.
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Pros
Sublime HQ
  • It is very light and boots up instantaneously.
  • It has tons of plugins that will help you to customize sublime entirely according to your needs and thereby is not bloated
  • Package control is really easy to work with and most plugins can be installed in 2 just clicks.
  • Free version has nearly all the features of the paid version.
  • Its User Interface is simple and makes it easy to located many features.
  • It gives you a ton of control over your ide setting through User-settings where you can customize almost everything.
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Cognition AI, Inc.
  • Quick code isolation of sytax errors
  • quick suggestions on how to correct coding error
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Cons
Sublime HQ
  • Plugins are easier to use and less complicated but transferring your license to a new computer isn't as simple as it sounds.
  • Sublime has an automatic file comparison feature, but it's challenging to use and should be improved.
  • Adding the ability to mark or highlight the text with different colors would be an excellent application.
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Cognition AI, Inc.
  • Windsurf is target to more medium to advanced users
  • Windsurf does fast debugging, but technical skills are needed.
  • Windsurf is not as intuitive as I initially thought.
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Likelihood to Renew
Sublime HQ
I love this application. It has helped to improve my work. Also, I became so used to the shortcuts that It's hard for me to change to another editor.
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Cognition AI, Inc.
No answers on this topic
Usability
Sublime HQ
This is a programmers tool. As such a lot of the features and benefits are lost on a non-technical user. To get the most out of the tool you need to have a basic crash course in how it works and what it can do. The documentation and community are good, but it takes a bit of time to get up to speed.
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Cognition AI, Inc.
Windsurf is a good tool for developers with more than basic coding skills. I would recommend it as a tool to quickly mitigate coding errors and issues. I did not take a deeper dive into the integrated extensions, but the library of extensions appear to be solid. An experience developer could quickly launch this platform, scan and test coding, and resolve issues quickly. I did not test this for larger code sets.
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Performance
Sublime HQ
It has many handy hacks and shortcuts which enhances its performace.
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Cognition AI, Inc.
No answers on this topic
Support Rating
Sublime HQ
Never had to use their customer support before. There is ample documentation online so it's straightforward to find a solution to any problem you might encounter. For example, I needed to convert a string of HTML code to a properly formatted HTML file to "modify." Easy to do when there are so many users of the product who have needed to do that same thing before.
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Cognition AI, Inc.
No answers on this topic
Alternatives Considered
Sublime HQ
We've used both Notepad++ and Atom; both are great but nothing really beats the Sublime Text UI; super intuitive and friendly and does everything you need without overwhelming you with stuff you don't. Other options are free, but for our organization, it was well worth the small license cost for the persistent use of a great product.
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Cognition AI, Inc.
Windsurf would be more comparable to GitHub Copilot or Perplexity to me. I think it's more of a pure code debugging line by line than some of the other tools listed above, however, they all have some capabilities to rewrite and test new coding. It boils down to what toolset you are most comfortable with. I typically will work with two platforms with the same issue to see how it is approached and the differences.
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Return on Investment
Sublime HQ
  • Sublime Text has helped me to focus on specific tasks, cutting out the clutter that many other IDEs have. As such, it has helped me be a more productive employee because I don't get dazed by hundreds of buttons. I can focus on just the code.
  • Sublime Text is so affordable that it's a no-brainer to have an extra tool in your toolset.
  • The Search features of Sublime Text are so useful that it has saved me a great amount of time compared to using Find & Replace menus in Xcode, Android Studio, or Eclipse.
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Cognition AI, Inc.
  • ROI is significant time saved from debugging, rewriting code, and testing
  • AI generated development can test executable code in a controlled environment
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ScreenShots