I attempted changing VS Code with Cursor, Antigravity, and Windsurf for a month and one obviously ruled

I used to assume my closely custom designed VS Code setup used to be top productiveness. I had the keyboard shortcuts mapped to muscle reminiscence, a superbly curated checklist of extensions, and a refusal to consider the AI editor hype educate. However as construction shifted towards agentic workflows, I determined to peer if the outdated king had in point of fact misplaced its crown.

I totally uninstalled VS Code for thirty days and moved my complete day by day workflow into the 3 heavyweights for the way forward for construction: Cursor, Google Antigravity, and Windsurf.

If you’re questioning which AI-first IDE is in reality price switching your whole workflow to, the decision is in, and certainly one of them is taking part in an absolutely other sport.

Cursor

Mature, powerhouse codebase dealing with

I began my 30-day experiment with Cursor, which felt like essentially the most herbal position to begin given its acquainted VS Code basis. For the longest time, Cursor has been the gold same old on this area, in large part as a result of its codebase indexing is sharp.

If you want to track any trojan horse throughout 5 other folders, its context engine maps out the dependencies superbly and lets you execute advanced edits with out dropping your home.

And with the discharge of model 3.0, Cursor successfully reworked from a wise textual content editor right into a full-blown undertaking keep watch over middle for independent construction.

The interface now revolves round a devoted multi-agent pane and an overhauled Composer machine that allows you to spin up parallel workflows.

The standout characteristic for me used to be the seamless cloud handoff, the place I may just start up a large, multi-file refactoring activity on my desktop, shut my computer to grasp tea, and select up proper the place the agent left off on some other device.

Alternatively, the adventure hasn’t been as clean as I imagined. On long-running debugging periods, I realized occasional context degradation the place the type would get stuck in irritating, repetitive common sense loops.

Google Antigravity

Radical, next-gen reasoning pace

Once I in the end shifted my workflow into Google Antigravity, I spotted it isn’t looking to simply tweak the standard editor revel in; it’s making an attempt to redefine it.

Google has divided the interface into two portions: a normal Editor view for handbook keep watch over and the Agent Supervisor. The latter is the place Google hits it out of the park.

It lets you spin up more than one brokers that whole advanced duties around the terminal, editor, and a integrated browser. I latterly tasked Antigravity with development a posh real-time finance dashboard from scratch.

As a substitute of producing code, Antigravity broke down all of the activity into an in depth plan, waited for me to approve, and began deploying parallel brokers.

Antigravity’s task didn’t finally end up right here. It introduced the dashboard within the integrated browser, interacted with the charts, and gave me screenshots and recordings of the operating UI.

Regardless of how seamless this multi-agent setup is, the platform nonetheless has some tough edges. The primary type at the back of it, Gemini 3.1 Professional, is far sooner now and handles massive quantities of data smartly, however it nonetheless feels a step at the back of Anthropic’s Claude in relation to deep, advanced coding common sense.

On tougher math formulation and difficult information control, Gemini would infrequently get perplexed and drive me to step in manually or transfer the agent’s mind over to Claude to mend the issue.

Being a brand new platform, there also are transparent efficiency insects and messy format problems that Google wishes to wash up. Operating more than one brokers immediately can infrequently lag your laptop, and the integrated browser tabs pile up briefly with out last themselves.

Google must make Gemini smarter at common sense and optimize the app so it runs easily.

Windsurf

Seamless, friction-free independent coding

Windsurf approaches AI-native coding from a challenge control point of view. Constructed at the acquainted VS Code structure, it didn’t require me to desert my muscle reminiscence, keybindings, or extension format, which made onboarding clean.

With the release of Windsurf 2.0, the platform introduces the Agent Command Middle, a super characteristic that brings a Kanban-board taste dashboard at once into your IDE.

Conventional AI interface locks you right into a unmarried, linear chat window, which is able to get messy after some time. Windsurf breaks this development. Duties are cleanly arranged into standing columns like Operating, Blocked, and In a position.

I will spin up more than one brokers, watch their respective playing cards slide into the Operating column, and monitor their growth at a look with out textual content cluttering my number one workspace.

I additionally preferred the Areas characteristic, which shall we me package explicit agent periods, pull requests, recordsdata, and shared context.

Alternatively, the default SWE intelligence is elementary at perfect. I attempted growing a private site with a posh urged, and it neglected many small main points all the way through execution.

AI editors unleashed

General, this month-long experiment proved that the struggle for without equal developer workspace is now not a two-horse race. The growth is plain: Cursor 3.0 has matured right into a powerhouse, whilst Windsurf 2.0 has closed the space with its Agent command middle.

But, when the mud settled, Google Antigravity emerged because the winner. It treated advanced refactors with a degree of precision that the others couldn’t reasonably contact.

With Google I/O 2026 simply across the nook, I will’t wait to peer how the quest massive improves it with complicated Gemini fashions and fixes traumatic efficiency problems.