Bolt.new vs Windsurf
A side-by-side comparison of capabilities, autonomy, integrations, and pricing to help you choose.
Short answer: choose Bolt.new if you want prompt, edit, and deploy full-stack web apps in the browser (Supervised agent, freemium); choose Windsurf if you want agentic ai ide whose cascade agent edits across your codebase (Supervised agent, freemium).
| Bolt.new | Windsurf | |
|---|---|---|
| What it is | Prompt, edit, and deploy full-stack web apps in the browser | Agentic AI IDE whose Cascade agent edits across your codebase |
| Type | agent | agent |
| Autonomy | Supervised agent | Supervised agent |
| Pricing | freemium · Free (1M tokens/mo); Pro from $25/mo | freemium · Free tier; Pro $20/mo |
| Best for | consumers, developers, smb | developers, mid-market, enterprise |
| Deployment | saas | saas |
| Modalities | text, code | text, code |
| Models | claude, model-agnostic | claude, proprietary, model-agnostic |
| Protocols | rest-api | mcp, function-calling |
| Integrations | Netlify, Supabase, GitHub, Expo | GitHub, MCP servers, VS Code extensions ecosystem, Devin |
| Capabilities | 3 documented | 3 documented |
Bolt.new
- +Full dev environment runs in the browser via WebContainers, with the AI controlling filesystem, terminal, and server
- +Generates true full-stack apps (not just UI) and can deploy via Bolt Cloud
- +No local setup; fast for prototyping and iterating by chatting
- -Token-based usage cost can rise quickly on complex or long-running builds
- -Output needs human review and iteration; it is not a hands-off autonomous engineer
Windsurf
- +Cascade does genuine multi-step, multi-file agentic work inside a familiar VS Code-style editor
- +Ships a fast in-house coding model (SWE-1.5) and can also run frontier models like Claude
- +After the Cognition acquisition, integrates Devin as a cloud agent for delegated tasks
- -Quota and credit changes after the acquisition have shifted what each tier includes
- -Multi-step agent runs still need human review; not a hands-off autonomous engineer
Which should you choose?
Bolt.new is prompt, edit, and deploy full-stack web apps in the browser, best for consumers, developers, smb. Windsurf is agentic ai ide whose cascade agent edits across your codebase, best for developers, mid-market, enterprise. The right choice depends on the autonomy level you want, your existing integrations, and your budget, all compared above.
This comparison is generated from the sourced Bolt.new and Windsurf profiles. Open either profile to review its evidence and last-reviewed date.