AI coding tools are starting to look similar on the surface: they all offer chat, agents, code edits, terminal awareness, and some form of autocomplete. But the real differences are in the workflow. The question is less “which one has AI?” and more “where does the AI live in your development process?”
IDE
For me, VS Code is still the baseline. It is flexible, extensible, familiar, and easy to compose with different tools. I can use GitHub Copilot for autocomplete, Claude inside the editor for planning and questions, and Claude Code CLI for deeper agentic work. That modularity is a feature, not a weakness.
Cursor feels like a more opinionated AI-native version of the VS Code experience. It keeps the editor familiar but adds a stronger AI layer around it. One of the most interesting recent directions is its newer agent-management UI, which makes agents feel more like first-class parts of the development environment rather than just a chat panel attached to the side.
Windsurf is also very polished, especially in the way it tries to keep the developer in flow. Its Cascade experience makes the AI feel continuously aware of the project, the terminal, and the surrounding context.
Antigravity is the most different conceptually. Its Agent Manager is separate from the editor, which makes it feel more like a control room for autonomous coding agents. That separation seems practical: you can let agents explore, plan, browse, and work while keeping the editor as a review surface. Still, for my daily coding, it does not yet feel like enough of a reason to migrate away from VS Code.
Autocomplete
Autocomplete is where the differences become more subtle.
GitHub Copilot inside VS Code is still good enough for my everyday use. It gives me fast inline suggestions, completes boilerplate, and helps with local coding momentum without forcing me into a different IDE.
Cursor and Windsurf, however, clearly put a lot of product attention into making autocomplete feel smoother. Their Tab experiences are not just “predict the next line”; they are closer to “predict the next edit.” They can feel more aware of surrounding files, recent changes, naming conventions, and the flow of a refactor.
That is a real advantage. A highly polished autocomplete experience reduces friction in tiny moments: renaming things, adding tests, filling in repetitive code, or continuing a pattern across a file. But for me, the difference is not large enough to outweigh the comfort and flexibility of my current VS Code setup.
AI Workflow
The biggest distinction is the agentic workflow.
Today, my setup is:
- VS Code as the main IDE
- GitHub Copilot for autocomplete
- Claude plugin for planning and asking questions
- Claude Code CLI for heavier coding tasks and multi-agent-style work A- ntigravity occasionally for multi-agent exploration
This gives me most of what I want: fast autocomplete, strong reasoning, repo-level context, terminal execution, and the ability to delegate larger tasks when needed.
Cursor and Windsurf package this kind of workflow more elegantly. Cursor’s agent UI is increasingly compelling because it brings agent orchestration closer to the editor. Windsurf’s Cascade also does a great job of making the AI feel integrated into the coding loop instead of bolted on.
Antigravity goes even further in the “agents as workers” direction. The separate manager is practical, especially for exploration and parallel tasks, but it still feels more like something I would use alongside my main environment rather than as my primary IDE.
Conclusion
I still prefer VS Code with Claude and GitHub Copilot autocomplete. It gives me the right balance of control, flexibility, and power.
I understand why people like Cursor and Windsurf. They have very good experiences, especially around autocomplete and AI-native workflows. Cursor’s newer agent-management interface is particularly interesting. Windsurf’s flow-oriented Cascade experience is also genuinely strong.
But for now, neither feels compelling enough to make me migrate. Antigravity’s separate Agent Manager is practical and promising, especially for multi-agent exploration, but it also does not feel like enough to replace my daily VS Code setup.
AI Fair Usage: Grammarly for text correction.