Compare AI tools

	GitHub Copilot B	Windsurf A	Genspark A	Perplexity S
Tagline	Microsoft/GitHub's autocomplete. Deep VS Code + JetBrains integration.	Codeium's agentic IDE. Cascade agent + strong free tier.	AI agent for deep search. Generates Sparkpages — full mini-reports.	AI search done right. Cited answers, not chat theater.
Category	coding	coding	research	research
Pricing	Free (limited) + $10/mo Pro + $19/mo Business	Free + $15/mo Pro	Free + $25/mo Plus	Free + $20/mo Pro
Best for	Teams with GitHub already. Devs who don't want to change IDEs.	Developers who want Cursor-like power for less money.	Travel planning, shopping comparisons, deep research where you want an artifact back.	Replacing Google for any question where you want a cited answer in seconds.
Strengths	Great enterprise story Works in your existing IDE Chat + autocomplete	Cheaper than Cursor Cascade agent for multi-file tasks Solid free tier	Sparkpages = curated multi-source mini-articles Agent can book, compare, shop Autopilot agent for long tasks	Sources every claim Fast, current answers Pro Search runs multi-step research Spaces for persistent context
Weaknesses	Less agentic than Cursor/Claude Code Model quality varies	Smaller community Model selection more limited	Early-stage — rough edges Less reliable than Perplexity for simple questions	Not a general chatbot Answers can be shallow on complex topics
Kai's verdict	B-tier. Solid for autocomplete but the category moved past it. Pick Cursor unless you can't.	A-tier. Close second to Cursor. If $5/mo matters, start here.	A-tier. Bet on this one — the Sparkpage format is genuinely new.	S-tier for search. I use it before Google now. If you're still Googling everything, try this for a week.
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