Compare AI tools

	Windsurf A	Cursor S	Perplexity S	Adobe Firefly A
Tagline	Codeium's agentic IDE. Cascade agent + strong free tier.	VS Code fork that made AI coding actually work.	AI search done right. Cited answers, not chat theater.	Commercially safe image gen, deeply integrated with Photoshop.
Category	coding	coding	research	image
Pricing	Free + $15/mo Pro	Free + $20/mo Pro + $40/mo Business	Free + $20/mo Pro	Free + included with Creative Cloud
Best for	Developers who want Cursor-like power for less money.	Developers. Non-developers who want to ship working code.	Replacing Google for any question where you want a cited answer in seconds.	Anyone in Creative Cloud. Brands that need copyright clarity.
Strengths	Cheaper than Cursor Cascade agent for multi-file tasks Solid free tier	Tab completion feels like mind-reading Composer for multi-file edits Runs Claude, GPT, Gemini — you pick	Sources every claim Fast, current answers Pro Search runs multi-step research Spaces for persistent context	Trained on licensed content — commercially safe Generative Fill in Photoshop is incredible Native to Adobe ecosystem
Weaknesses	Smaller community Model selection more limited	Can feel overwhelming for non-coders Expensive at scale	Not a general chatbot Answers can be shallow on complex topics	Aesthetic ceiling below Midjourney Tied to Adobe subscription
Kai's verdict	A-tier. Close second to Cursor. If $5/mo matters, start here.	S-tier for coding. If you write code of any kind, this pays back the $20 in a day.	S-tier for search. I use it before Google now. If you're still Googling everything, try this for a week.	S-tier inside Photoshop (Generative Fill). B-tier standalone.
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