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Corey Ward
@coreyward.dev

I've used each of Cursor and Windsurf as my daily driver IDE for at least 6 weeks each. I've used Claude Code at least several times a week since launch. And the conclusion I keep coming back to, is that Microsoft/Github is going to win the AI-integrated IDE war.

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Corey Ward
@coreyward.dev

They own the direction of VSCode. They're an established team with more experience in AI-IDEs and no capitalization concerns. They're vertically integrated, and their inference costs are lower than the competition. They have the trust of enterprises, and already have many as customers.

Corey Ward
@coreyward.dev

The most recent stable release of VSCode (1.100) is really solid. Copilot chat works better with effectively every model (e.g., Gemini 2.5 Pro works properly, unlike with the competition)—slower sometimes, but with more usable outputs. Tab completion isn't as robust, but UI is better (more explicit)

Corey Ward
@coreyward.dev

On the flip side, the forks have gained traction quickly by being compatible with VSCode, but that changes if they're not able to apply patches quickly and reliably. Their roadmap is subject to the direction of VSCode if they stay in sync, and they lose portability if they opt out.