Windsurf vs Anthropic API
Agentic IDE (formerly Codeium) — Cascade AI flow + SWE-1.5 model
vs. API for Claude — frontier models for chat, tool use, agents, and long-context reasoning
Pricing tiers
Windsurf
Free
Daily + weekly refresh of basic quota. Includes SWE-1.5 + Cascade (limited) + Tab.
Free
Light
Unlimited with daily + weekly refresh. Free higher quota tier.
$0 base (usage-based)
Pro
$20/month. All premium models. Fast Context. Usage billed at API price.
$20/mo
Teams
$40/user/month. Team + admin dashboard + RBAC.
$40/mo
Max
$200/month. Unlimited + all features.
$200/mo
Enterprise
Custom. Unlimited + SSO + SOC 2 + on-prem option.
Custom
Anthropic API
Opus 4.7 — usage
Input $5 / output $25 / cache-write $6.25 / cache-read $0.50 per 1M tokens. Batch = 50% off.
Custom
Sonnet 4.6 — usage
Input $3 / output $15 / cache-write $3.75 / cache-read $0.30 per 1M tokens. Batch = 50% off.
Custom
Haiku 4.5 — usage
Input $1 / output $5 / cache-write $1.25 / cache-read $0.10 per 1M tokens. Batch = 50% off.
Custom
Free-tier quotas head-to-head
Comparing free on Windsurf vs opus-4-7 on Anthropic API.
| Metric | Windsurf | Anthropic API |
|---|---|---|
| discount batch | — | 50 % off |
Features
Windsurf · 13 features
- Bring Your Own Key — Use your OpenAI/Anthropic/Azure keys to bypass quotas.
- Cascade — AI agent flow with read/write tool use across files.
- Chat Panel — Sidebar chat with codebase context.
- Command (inline edit) — Ctrl/Cmd+I → natural language edits.
- Deploys — One-click deployment to Netlify + custom targets.
- Fast Context — Optimized context retrieval engine for codebase queries.
- Image Input — Drag screenshots into chat for context.
- MCP Support — Hook MCP servers for extended tools.
- Memories — Persistent notes Cascade can refer to.
- Previews — Live preview pane inside IDE for web apps.
- Tab Completions — Next-edit + inline completions, multi-cursor aware.
- Terminal Integration — Cascade reads + writes terminal. Confirms risky ops.
- .windsurfrules — Project-level system prompts.
Anthropic API · 0 features
Developer interfaces
| Kind | Windsurf | Anthropic API |
|---|---|---|
| CLI | Windsurf CLI | Claude Code CLI |
| SDK | — | Go SDK, Java SDK, Python SDK, Ruby SDK, TypeScript SDK (@anthropic-ai/sdk) |
| REST | — | AWS Bedrock, Google Vertex AI, Microsoft Azure AI, REST API (Messages + Agents) |
| MCP | MCP Support | — |
| OTHER | JetBrains / Xcode / Eclipse / Neovim Plugins, Windsurf Desktop App, .windsurfrules | — |
Staxly is an independent catalog of developer platforms. Outbound links to Windsurf and Anthropic API are plain references to their official websites. Pricing is verified against vendor pages at publication time — reconfirm before buying.
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