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Comment by _joel | Hacker News Reader

You get the same results for cheaper by using a different tool (Windsurf's better imho).

That may be, but I think tools with a fixed monthly fee are always going to have an incentive to reduce their own costs on the backend and route you toward less capable models, cut down context size, produce less output, stop before the task is truly finished, etc.

Given how much time these models can save me, I'd rather optimize for capability and just accept whatever the price is as a cost of doing business. (Within reason I guess—I probably wouldn't go beyond $2-3k per month at this point, unless there was very clear ROI on that spend.)

Also, it's not only about saving time. More powerful AI tools allow me to build things it would otherwise be impossible to build... that's just as important as the time/cost equation.

It's literally the same model. I can build more complex stuff in windsurf as the IDE is better than Cline/Roocode integration in vscode. It's still the same model under the hood. Sonnet 202500219

I mean, you pour money down the drain if you think it's helping, have at it :P

It's the same model but not necessarily the same context. Like he said, those tools try to be very 'smart' with context to save costs.

You're not actually getting all the files you add in the context window, you're getting a RAG'd version of it, which is generally much worse if the un-RAG'd code is still within the effective context limit.

I've spent more than 40 hours/week and close to $1,000 in API credits using these tools. For me the ranking goes. But, we all will have difference experiences.

1. Claude Code 2. Cursor 3. Cline. 4. Windsurf

How you can place windsuf in number 4 is interesting, especially given it's very similar to cursor but is leaner on the UI and Cline is a vs-code plugin that very verbose.

I'll stick with Windsurf, especially given their upcoming announcement.

I care a lot less about UI and more about quality of output. Windsurf has had some of the lowest quality outputs for me.

$1000 over how many 40 hour weeks?

Honesty not sure quite a few. 6-8 or so?

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