Windsurf vs Warp
A feature-by-feature comparison of Windsurf and Warp across 7 capability categories.
Modalities — Windsurf Wins
| Feature | Windsurf | Warp |
|---|---|---|
Text Input | Yes. Chat and inline prompting throughout the editor. | Yes, requires free plan. Terminal plus Warp Agent / Agent CLI take natural-language tasks. |
Image Upload / Vision | Yes. Paste screenshots and mockups into the chat as context. | Unknown. Screenshot/vision attach in the agent was not confirmed on the homepage. |
Image Generation | No. Does not generate still images. | No. A developer terminal/agent platform, not an image generator. |
Voice Mode | No. No voice interface. | No. No conversational voice loop is documented. |
Video Understanding | No. Does not analyse existing video. | No. Not a video-analysis product. |
Video Generation | No. Not a video generation product. | No. Not a video generation product. |
File Upload (PDF, DOCX) | Yes. Reads files from the open workspace and accepts attachments. | Yes, requires free plan. Agents operate on the local (or cloud-agent) codebase. |
Code Execution | Yes. Cascade runs terminal commands and tests as part of an agentic loop. | Yes, requires free plan. The terminal runs commands; agents can execute in the shell and open PRs. |
Audio Input | No. No audio input. | No. No audio-file input is documented. |
Canvas / Artifact Editor | Yes. The editor pane is the shared surface. | Unknown. Overlapping columns disagreed (no vs partial); left unverified rather than copying a no. |
Screen Sharing / Computer Use | No. Operates on the codebase and terminal, not the screen. | Partial. Session links share agent runs. That is not a desktop computer-use product. |
Memory & Context — Windsurf Wins
| Feature | Windsurf | Warp |
|---|---|---|
Persistent Memory | Yes. Memories persist project context across sessions. | Partial. Enterprise lists cross-harness agent memory (research preview). Warp Drive stores snippets. Not ChatGPT memory. |
Large Context Window | Partial. Indexes the whole repository; the usable window depends on the selected model. | Unknown. You pick models (Claude, GPT, Gemini, etc.). No single window is published. |
Custom Instructions | Yes. Workspace rules files steer the assistant per project. | Yes, requires free plan. Factory config as code, autonomy settings, and data controls steer agents. |
Conversation History | Yes. Cascade conversations are saved per workspace. | Yes, requires free plan. Cloud conversation storage (limited on Free, unlimited on Build). Session links for sharing. |
Integrations — Warp Wins
| Feature | Windsurf | Warp |
|---|---|---|
Web Search / Browsing | Yes. Can fetch documentation and web results as context. | Unknown. A first-party live-web search toggle was not confirmed. |
Plugins / Extensions | Partial. MCP servers extend it, rather than a first-party plugin marketplace. | Yes, requires free plan. Any model/harness, Slack/Linear/GitHub mentions, BYOK, and factory automations from GitHub/webhooks. |
API Access | No. An IDE product, not an API. | Partial. Enterprise Analytics API is listed. Agent CLI is the main programmatic surface, not a public generate REST API. |
Zapier Integration | Unknown. Not confirmed either way. | Unknown. No first-party Zapier app was checked. |
Custom GPTs / Bots | Partial. Workflows and rules rather than shareable custom agents. | Partial. Factories and harness choice specialize agents. Not a GPT Store. |
Real-time Collaboration | Unknown. Not confirmed either way. | Yes, requires plus plan. Warp Drive collaboration (unlimited on Build) and real-time session links so others can watch/steer an agent. |
Live Social Data Integration | No. Not a live social-firehose product. | |
Live Citation Mapping | No. Not a cited-search product. |
Developer — Warp Wins
| Feature | Windsurf | Warp |
|---|---|---|
Function Calling | Yes. Tool calling drives the agentic editing loop. | Yes, requires free plan. Agents run shell/tools and can connect Slack, Linear, and GitHub. |
Streaming Responses | Yes. Responses stream into the editor as they are produced. | Yes, requires free plan. A terminal streams command and agent output as it runs. |
Fine-Tuning | No. No custom model training. | No. You bring models. Warp does not train custom weights. Self-improvement loops edit factory config, not a foundation model. |
Embeddings API | No. No embeddings endpoint. | No. Codebase indexing is not a public embeddings API. |
Structured Output (JSON) | No. Not a language model, so this does not apply. | Partial. Evals/benchmarks score spec adherence. Not a JSON-schema chat API. |
Reasoning / Thinking Mode | Yes. Available through the frontier models it can be pointed at. | Unknown. Overlapping columns disagreed (yes vs partial); left unverified rather than copying a no. |
Local Execution | Yes, requires free plan. The terminal and Agent CLI run locally. Cloud agents are optional. Homepage also says the terminal is open source. | |
Open Weights | Partial. You can use open-source models and BYOK. Warp is not itself a model-weight release. | |
Multi-Agent Orchestration | Yes, requires plus plan. Factories run fleets of coding agents across the SDLC on any model or harness. |
Platforms — Tie
| Feature | Windsurf | Warp |
|---|---|---|
Web App | No. Desktop editor only. | Partial. Cloud agents and session links are browser-visible. The primary product is still the desktop terminal. |
iOS App | No. No native mobile app; the web app runs in a mobile browser. | No. Downloads are macOS, Windows, and Linux. |
Android App | No. No native mobile app; the web app runs in a mobile browser. | No. No Android client is documented. |
Desktop App | Yes. A desktop IDE, forked from VS Code. | Yes, requires free plan. Native terminal for macOS, Windows 10/11, and Linux (brew, winget, .deb/.rpm/AppImage). |
Chrome Extension | No. No official browser extension. | No. No official Chrome extension. |
Privacy — Windsurf Wins
| Feature | Windsurf | Warp |
|---|---|---|
GDPR Compliant | Yes. Codeium publishes a DPA and serves EU customers. | Unknown. SOC 2 is documented. A GDPR DPA was not read. |
Opt Out of Data Training | Yes. Zero-data-retention mode is available; enterprise plans do not train on your code. | Yes, requires free plan. Pricing: Zero Data Retention with contracted LLM providers — no customer data retained or used for training. Telemetry is configurable. |
Enterprise Privacy Mode | Yes, requires enterprise plan. Self-hosted and VPC deployment options for enterprise. | Yes, requires enterprise plan. SAML SSO, ZDR, BYOLLM, self-hosted cloud agents, admin data controls. |
Workspaces — Tie
| Feature | Windsurf | Warp |
|---|---|---|
Projects / Folders | Yes. Organised by workspace. | Yes, requires free plan. Warp Drive (limited on Free) plus factory config repos. |