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JetBrains IDEs vs Windsurf comparison

 

Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive SummaryUpdated on Jan 25, 2026

Review summaries and opinions

We asked business professionals to review the solutions they use. Here are some excerpts of what they said:
 

Categories and Ranking

JetBrains IDEs
Ranking in IDE
5th
Average Rating
8.8
Number of Reviews
6
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
Windsurf
Ranking in IDE
1st
Average Rating
7.8
Reviews Sentiment
5.7
Number of Reviews
26
Ranking in other categories
AI Code Assistants (1st), AI Software Development (5th)
 

Mindshare comparison

As of April 2026, in the IDE category, the mindshare of JetBrains IDEs is 7.7%, up from 4.5% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Windsurf is 7.1%, down from 12.0% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
IDE Mindshare Distribution
ProductMindshare (%)
Windsurf7.1%
JetBrains IDEs7.7%
Other85.2%
IDE
 

Featured Reviews

Souhardyya Biswas - PeerSpot reviewer
Software Engineer at a manufacturing company with 10,001+ employees
Long-term coding has benefited from intuitive UI and tools but now needs lighter performance
I am using the code completion feature in IntelliJ, and it helps me with my development processes. I use advanced debugging tools. The advanced debugging tools are useful for resolving code issues. The integration with version controls is seamless. GitHub is what I use. For my professional role, I need to use GitHub Enterprise, and the way it is set up in my enterprise, it does not allow linking it with IntelliJ. That is where I am stuck using the CLI. GitHub itself has a very robust CLI, so I have no complaints there. For personal use, GitHub integrates really well with IntelliJ. The UI is pretty good and very intuitive. I actually use the new UI which IntelliJ provides, and that is very intuitive and good.
reviewer2804436 - PeerSpot reviewer
Sre at a tech vendor with 5,001-10,000 employees
AI coding workflows have accelerated routine development and debugging while improving focus
Overall, Windsurf is a powerful tool, but one key area is the accuracy and consistency of suggestions. While it is very helpful, sometimes the generated code or fixes need manual validation, especially for complex or production-level logic. Another improvement would be better control over AI actions, especially in agent workflows like Cascade. More transparency and fine-grained control would help developers trust and use it more confidently in critical tasks. Performance can be improved slightly. One area for improvement is around context limits and memory handling. Sometimes when working on very large codebases or long sessions, the context can feel limited. Improving how it retains and prioritizes context would make suggestions even more accurate. Another area is documentation and onboarding guidance. Since Windsurf is a relatively new tool, having more structured documentation, best practices, and real-world examples would help teams adopt it faster. Additionally, enterprise-level controls could be enhanced, such as better security, audit logs, and usage tracking. One additional area for improvement is offline and limited connectivity support. Since Windsurf relies heavily on AI capabilities, having a more robust fallback or partial offline functionality would be useful in restricted environments. Another point is the customization of AI behavior. It would be great to have more control over how the AI responds, such as tuning it for specific coding standards, project styles, or team preferences. Additionally, integration with more developer tools and ecosystems could be expanded. While it already fits well into the workflow, deeper integrations with CI/CD pipelines, issue tracking, and monitoring tools would make it more powerful.

Quotes from Members

We asked business professionals to review the solutions they use. Here are some excerpts of what they said:
 

Pros

"Good support for refactoring."
"The best features offered by JetBrains IDEs include a super attractive set of language-specific tools including debuggers, symbol monitors, and the extensions that come with it, which helps me get a much more in-depth view of my code rather than relying on print or log statements."
"It seems to me as one of the best IDEs in the market, they are always releasing new versions with positive improvements, and in my opinion, I recommend it in its entirety."
"The UI is pretty good and very intuitive."
"Fast, and I never had a crash."
"Having the complete development environment in Linux in the same way as in Windows is already the best."
"From the very beginning to the deepest thing I could possibly want to develop, I believe I could do it all using JetBrains IDEs."
"Money and time have both been saved because we were utilizing a lot of time for bug fixing and solving troubleshooting issues, and that time has now been reduced, which has saved a lot of money."
"My productivity has improved significantly because I can have a first draft ready within thirty minutes when I start using the prediction features from Windsurf."
"Windsurf has positively impacted my organization by improving our code quality and reducing our development time."
"Windsurf has saved a lot of time, and productivity has gone up at least 200%."
"Windsurf has saved a lot of time, and productivity has gone up at least 200%."
"Windsurf has positively impacted my organization by helping us achieve at least ten to twenty percent improvement for each individual working in the data warehouse to use Windsurf instead of looking for help from any other team."
"Windsurf has helped me a lot by reducing the development time, and by using Windsurf, I have reduced my time by 30% to 40%."
"Since adopting Windsurf, I have been able to downsize my staff and increase my output by 5x."
 

Cons

"One of the main issues with JetBrains IDEs is that it is very heavy, taking a lot of time to load and using a lot of memory."
"Sometimes, plugins (from third parties) are not updated."
"I have noticed that when I switch to less powerful machines, IntelliJ seems to use up the RAM and the machine gets really slow and really hot quite quickly, which is not the case with Visual Studio."
"One of the most important things to improve is the consumption of resources, mainly memory."
"I see as a disadvantage the high prices of the license purchase that is almost $ 500 per year since this limits the use of IDE and especially for those developers who work on their own since it requires a large investment."
"Sometimes, plugins (from third parties) are not updated."
"One thing I think could be improved in JetBrains IDEs is the integration with ChatGPT, which I feel could be deeper."
"I wish Windsurf would improve the free trial, as it is slow."
"Windsurf should definitely improve on the retrieval coverage side and multi-agent side, which Cloud Code and others have."
"Even though Windsurf has a good understanding of the codebase, sometimes when you ask it to do a complex task, it may complete it in the first try but may need improvements."
"Windsurf can improve its analytical solutions and inbuilt features, as I currently have a dependency on external third-party tools that could be introduced into Windsurf itself to reduce that time or dependency."
"Overall, Windsurf is a powerful tool, but one key area is the accuracy and consistency of suggestions."
"I would appreciate having context usage visibility, such as a bar or indicator showing how much context is used by the chat in a single conversation."
"The answers from Windsurf are not always accurate, and it is also a bit slow."
"Sometimes, Windsurf is not able to develop the feature that we want and hallucinates a lot."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Manufacturing Company
13%
Comms Service Provider
12%
Wholesaler/Distributor
9%
Financial Services Firm
9%
Comms Service Provider
9%
Financial Services Firm
9%
Computer Software Company
9%
Outsourcing Company
8%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business7
Large Enterprise1
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business15
Midsize Enterprise5
Large Enterprise10
 

Questions from the Community

What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for JetBrains IDEs?
I am aware of the pricing and licensing of JetBrains IDEs, which I believe is around ninety-nine dollars for a year. I find that to be a very reasonable rate.
What needs improvement with JetBrains IDEs?
One thing I think could be improved in JetBrains IDEs is the integration with ChatGPT, which I feel could be deeper. Some of it is a bit sketchy; it would be great to be able to follow the same thr...
What is your primary use case for JetBrains IDEs?
I use JetBrains IDEs for building applications with Python as the backend. I use JetBrains IDEs as my IDE for really everything, including for database management. I connect through my database the...
What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Windsurf?
My experience with pricing, setup cost, and licensing was that we used the free license back then.
What needs improvement with Windsurf?
I feel that Windsurf can be improved, as sometimes it keeps giving the same answer again and again, which makes me feel stuck at those points in time, because it is giving the same answer in a loop...
What is your primary use case for Windsurf?
I am using Windsurf for generating unit test cases for my code and to improve my code, improve functionality in that code, and mostly I'm using it for coding purposes to generate new code. For gene...
 

Comparisons

 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

Citi, Siemens, Salesforce, Twitter, HP, New York Times, Pintrest, Airbnb, Expedia, Samsung, Volkswagen, Wikipedia, NASA
Dell, Anduril, MongoDB, Zillow, Atlassian
Find out what your peers are saying about JetBrains IDEs vs. Windsurf and other solutions. Updated: April 2026.
889,855 professionals have used our research since 2012.