What changed in 2026
A year ago this was a straight fight between two independent AI editors. Both now belong to much larger companies, and that changed what you pay for.
- Cursor was bought by SpaceX, which closed the deal in August 2026. Cursor now sits inside SpaceXAI with xAI’s Grok, and its plans were rebuilt around Grok: the cheapest paid plan only runs Grok models, and every paid plan bundles X (Twitter) perks.
- Windsurf went to Cognition, the makers of the Devin agent, and was renamed Devin Desktop in June 2026. It’s now built around running several coding agents side by side.
If an older comparison told you “both cost $15 to $20 a month for the same models”, that’s no longer true.
Pricing: what your money actually buys
At $20 a month, Devin Desktop Pro includes frontier models from OpenAI, Anthropic and Google, plus SpaceXAI’s models, in its quota. You only pay more if you blow through the daily and weekly allowance, and then it’s at API pricing.
Cursor splits this in two. Plus at $8 is the cheapest way into Cursor, but it’s Grok-only. To use Claude or GPT you need Premium at $30, and those models are billed on top at API list price. If Claude or GPT is your daily model, Cursor will usually cost you more than $30 a month.
At the top end both charge $200 a month (Cursor Ultra, Devin Max) for much higher limits.
Agents and workflow
Both editors have capable built-in agents, but they lean different ways:
- Cursor is a polished single-agent IDE. Premium adds cloud agents, automations and Bugbot, which reviews your pull requests.
- Devin Desktop is an agent command center with a full IDE attached. You can dispatch several agents at once, local or in Devin Cloud, and even run Codex, Claude Agent or OpenCode through the Agent Client Protocol, then review their work as it lands.
Teams and security
For a small team, Cursor is cheaper on paper: $30+ per user, with SAML/OIDC SSO included. Devin Desktop Teams costs $80 a month plus $40 per full developer seat, and SSO is reserved for Enterprise. Cursor’s per-seat price doesn’t include third-party model usage, though, so the gap narrows if your team relies on Claude or GPT.
The bottom line
- Solo developers who live in Claude or GPT: Devin Desktop Pro is the simplest, most predictable $20 you can spend.
- Developers fine with Grok: Cursor Plus at $8 is the cheapest capable AI editor around.
- Teams that need SSO tomorrow: Cursor Teams, unless you’re ready for a Devin Enterprise contract.
How we compared
Prices, plans and features come from each company’s own pricing and product pages, checked on 15 October 2026 and listed in the sources below. Ownership details come from the cited reporting. Plans in this market change often, so check the official pages before you buy, and tell us if something has changed.