Visual Studio Code and Windsurf, fact by fact
| Fact | Visual Studio Code | Windsurf |
|---|---|---|
| Stars | 193,660Verified 8 Oct 2026 | not tracked for Windsurf |
| Newest commit | 8 Oct 20260 days old when we read itVerified 8 Oct 2026 | not tracked for Windsurf |
| Contributors | 314Verified 8 Oct 2026 | not tracked for Windsurf |
| License | MITVerified 8 Oct 2026 | not tracked for Windsurf |
| Latest stable release | 1.141.0published 7 Oct 2026Verified 8 Oct 2026 | not tracked for Windsurf |
| Homebrew installs | 21,088 in 30 daysvisual-studio-codeVerified 8 Oct 2026 | not tracked for Windsurf |
| Repository | microsoft/vscodeTypeScriptVerified 8 Oct 2026 | not tracked for Windsurf |
What our catalogue holds
These are curated rows, not readings. We state no difference between the two columns because we have not checked either of them.
| Catalogue field | Visual Studio Code | Windsurf |
|---|---|---|
| Category | IDE | IDE |
| Where it runs | Desktop | Desktop |
| Pricing string, uncheckedWrong on 43 of our 190 rows. Not a price of ours. | Free | Free + Pro |
| Vendor page | code.visualstudio.com | codeium.com |
What we know about Visual Studio Code
Visual Studio Code is the host, not the agent: one Session Target control switches a session between five harnesses — Local, GitHub Copilot, Anthropic Claude, OpenAI Codex and Cloud — so the editor stays fixed while the agent behind it changes.
“Visual Studio Code supports multiple agent harnesses: Local, GitHub Copilot, Anthropic Claude, OpenAI Codex, and Cloud. An agent harness coordinates an agent session, including tool calls, context, and code changes. Use the Session Target control to choose a harness and where it runs.”
Run Anthropic's agent without installing a second product: the Claude harness is enabled by default and bills either through a GitHub Copilot subscription or through your own Anthropic key.
“Claude supports two authentication and billing options: · GitHub Copilot subscription: sign in to GitHub to use Copilot-routed models. Usage is billed through your Copilot subscription. · Anthropic credentials: use an Anthropic API key or Claude Code OAuth token. Usage is billed by Anthropic.”
Add Google Antigravity to the editor you already have instead of switching to its IDE: the extension installs its own local `agy` backend service on first launch.
“Click the Antigravity icon in the Activity Bar to sign in and begin setup. The extension automatically installs the local agy backend service on first launch.”
Keep the editor and switch the AI off: the `chat.disableAIFeatures` setting hides chat and inline suggestions and disables the Copilot extensions, per workspace or per user.
“This disables and hides features like chat or inline suggestions in VS Code and disables the Copilot extensions. You can configure the setting at the workspace or user level.”
The app you download is not the MIT repository: Microsoft ships Visual Studio Code as a licensed distribution of the open-source Code - OSS tree, and says the product is built on open source rather than being open source.
“Microsoft Visual Studio Code is a Microsoft licensed distribution of 'Code - OSS' that includes Microsoft proprietary assets (such as icons) and features (Visual Studio Marketplace integration, small aspects of enabling Remote Development). While these additions make up a very small percentage of…”
The extension library is licensed to Microsoft's own products, so a fork of Code - OSS cannot legally carry Microsoft extensions from the Visual Studio Marketplace.
“No. While the source code for an extension from Microsoft may be open source, we do not license extensions from Microsoft or its affiliates that are published to and acquired from the Visual Studio Marketplace for use outside of the Visual Studio family of products: Microsoft Visual Studio, Visua…”
The local agent harness still runs unsandboxed for everybody: Microsoft took sandboxing to 50% of users, then set the default rollout back to 0% in the 1.135 release.
“We previously rolled out sandboxing to 50% of users to validate it on a larger scale and in real-world use cases. While we didn't identify a specific blocking issue, continuing the rollout would likely require more support and follow-up work at a time when we want to preserve focus on higher-prio…”
A team that needs the agent confined before its first run should pick Codex CLI: in VS Code a Git worktree separates the files and nothing else.
“Worktree isolation does not restrict commands, network access, or access outside the worktree.”
What Visual Studio Code costs
Visual Studio Code itself is free for private and commercial work, and the product licence allows any number of copies inside a company network.
“You may use any number of copies of the software to develop and test your applications, including deployment within your internal corporate network.”
The editor is free but the agents are not: reaching the Claude Code and Codex harnesses through a Copilot subscription starts at Copilot Pro, $10 per user a month.
“Pro · For everyday coding with agents in GitHub Copilot. · $10 USD per user / month · Get started · Everything in Free and: · Access to Cloud agent and code review · Unlimited code completion and next edit suggestions · Access to 3rd party agents (Claude Code and Codex)”
There is a $0 Copilot tier under it, capped at 2,000 completions a month and a smaller model list.
“Free · For getting started with GitHub Copilot. · $0 USD · Get started Open in VS Code · What's included: · 2,000 completions per month · Access to Haiku 4.5, GPT-5 mini, and more”
Full Visual Studio Code profile · Visit code.visualstudio.com
What this page does not answer
We have researched Visual Studio Code and we have not researched Windsurf. That means the judgments above answer for one tool and not for the other, and we publish no price for Windsurf because we have not read its pricing page. Nothing on this page about Windsurf is our opinion; there is not enough evidence yet for one.
Questions people ask
- Are Visual Studio Code and Windsurf still maintained?
- Visual Studio Code committed to microsoft/vscode (main) on 8 Oct 2026. Windsurf has no repository we track. Both readings come from the default branch of each repository, on the date shown beside them.
- What does Visual Studio Code cost?
- Visual Studio Code: Visual Studio Code itself is free for private and commercial work, and the product licence allows any number of copies inside a company network. The editor is free but the agents are not: reaching the Claude Code and Codex harnesses through a Copilot subscription starts at Copilot Pro, $10 per user a month. There is a $0 Copilot tier under it, capped at 2,000 completions a month and a smaller model list. Windsurf: we have not read its pricing page, so we publish no price for it. Every figure here is quoted from the vendor's own page and linked beside the claim.
- Is Visual Studio Code or Windsurf open source?
- Visual Studio Code's repository microsoft/vscode reports the MIT licence. We have not read a licence for Windsurf. We read the licence GitHub reports for the repository, which is not the same question as whether the hosted product is free.
How we check this page
- Machine facts. Stars, contributors, the newest commit on the default branch, the licence GitHub reports and the latest stable release come from the GitHub API, and download counts from npm, PyPI, Homebrew and the VS Code Marketplace. Each value carries the day it was last confirmed, never the day this page was built. The line under each label is arithmetic on those two values.
- Judgments. Every claim about what a tool suits, what it is bad at and what it costs is quoted from a page we read, and that page is linked beside the claim. Where there is no link, we wrote no claim.
- Index status. Visual Studio Code carries claims we read, quoted and linked; Windsurf does not. So this page is offered to search engines.
Related comparisons
Pairs we can answer for come first.