Coding Assistants
Tabnine vs Windsurf.
Both sit in Coding Assistants, scored on the same six pillars from the same published methodology. Here is where they actually differ.
The short answer
Windsurf scores higher — 81.6 against 77.0, a margin of 4.6 points. That is the overall answer, not the whole one: the pillar breakdown below is where the decision usually actually gets made.
Tabnine leads on security & compliance and maturity & reliability; Windsurf leads on momentum, capability and value for money.
Tabnine
77.0
Strong
Privacy-first AI coding assistant you can self-host.
- From
- Free / $9 per month (Dev)
- Pricing
- Freemium
- Maturity
- Established
- Founded
- 2018
Cognition
81.6
Strong
Agentic IDE with Cascade flows, now part of the Devin family.
- From
- Free / $15 per month (Pro)
- Pricing
- Freemium
- Maturity
- Emerging
- Founded
- 2021
Pillar by pillar
The same six pillars and fixed weights used for every tool on the site. A lead of fewer than 5 points is not called for either side — these are evidence-backed judgements, not measurements. Read the methodology.
Capability
Windsurf by 12
Value for Money
Windsurf by 7
Security & Compliance
Tabnine by 10
Integrations & Ecosystem
Level
Maturity & Reliability
Tabnine by 8
Momentum
Windsurf by 16
Which one, and when
Pick Tabnine if
- →compliance and data control decide it — it leads Security & Compliance by 10 points.
- →it has to hold up in production from day one — it leads Maturity & Reliability by 8 points.
- →Security-conscious enterprises
- →Regulated or air-gapped teams
- →Privacy-first code completion
The catch
- Raw completion quality can trail the frontier-model assistants
- Best value is the enterprise/self-host tier, not the free plan
Pick Windsurf if
- →where the product will be in a year matters as much as today — it leads Momentum by 16 points.
- →the hardest end of the work is what you are buying for — it leads Capability by 12 points.
- →cost per unit of output is the binding constraint — it leads Value for Money by 7 points.
- →Developers wanting an affordable agentic IDE
- →Teams exploring autonomous agents
- →Cascade-style flow coding
The catch
- Acquisition transition created roadmap uncertainty
- Smaller community and ecosystem than Cursor or Copilot
What each is good at
Tabnine
- ✓Strong privacy story: self-hosted and air-gapped options
- ✓Doesn't train shared models on your code
- ✓Broad IDE support and enterprise admin controls
Windsurf
- ✓Cascade agent keeps strong long-session codebase context
- ✓Aggressive pricing relative to capability
- ✓Backed by Cognition's autonomous-agent research
Other comparisons in Coding Assistants
Comparing something else? Build your own side-by-side across any tools in the catalog.