Windsurf vs Groq
Agentic IDE (formerly Codeium) — Cascade AI flow + SWE-1.5 model
vs. Fastest LLM inference — LPU-powered (300-1000+ tokens/sec)
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
Groq
Free Tier
Generous free RPM / TPM by model. Great for dev + small apps.
Free
On-Demand (paid)
Pay-as-you-go per token. OpenAI-compatible API, no infrastructure to manage.
$0 base (usage-based)
Developer Tier
Higher rate limits for production apps.
$0 base (usage-based)
Enterprise
Custom. Dedicated capacity, SLA, on-prem option.
Custom
Free-tier quotas head-to-head
Comparing free on Windsurf vs free-tier on Groq.
| Metric | Windsurf | Groq |
|---|---|---|
| No overlapping quota metrics for these tiers. | ||
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.
Groq · 7 features
- Audio Transcription — Whisper endpoint.
- Batch API — 50% discount.
- Chat Completions (OpenAI-compat) — Standard /v1/chat/completions endpoint.
- Function Calling
- JSON Mode — Enforce JSON output format.
- Prompt Caching — 50% discount on cached input.
- Streaming — SSE streaming for chat.
Developer interfaces
| Kind | Windsurf | Groq |
|---|---|---|
| CLI | Windsurf CLI | — |
| SDK | — | groq-python, groq-sdk (Node) |
| REST | — | Groq API (OpenAI-compat) |
| 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 Groq are plain references to their official websites. Pricing is verified against vendor pages at publication time — reconfirm before buying.
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