I've been rage-testing these tools since they came out, and here's the shit they don't mention in their pretty demos.
GitHub Copilot: The "Safe" Choice That Costs a Fortune
GitHub's Enterprise pricing at $39/month makes the $10 basic plan look like a joke. For that money, you get access to better models and more features, but it's aimed at companies, not individual devs getting bent over by subscription costs.
When Copilot actually helps:
- Boilerplate code generation (React components, API endpoints, basic CRUD operations)
- Code completion inside VS Code, JetBrains, or your editor of choice
- Converting comments to code (when it understands what you meant)
- Working with common frameworks it's been trained on
When Copilot makes you want to scream:
- Suggests deprecated APIs from 2019 with absolute confidence
- Autocompletes your variable name
tempinto a 50-line weather app - "ENOENT: no such file or directory" when trying to read files that don't exist
- Hit the premium request limit in 3 days because it counts every autocomplete suggestion
Real cost: Budget $40-50/month if you're actually using it for work. The $10 plan works fine for basic autocomplete but feels intentionally gimped when you need the good stuff.
Cursor: VS Code But Actually Good At AI (With a Catch)
Cursor rebuilt VS Code from scratch because the plugin approach sucked. They were right, but now you have to learn a new editor. At $20/month, it seems reasonable - until you realize they switched to usage-based credits and you burn through them faster than expected.
What makes Cursor different:
- Composer mode lets you describe an entire feature and watch it build it across multiple files
- Actually understands your codebase context instead of just the current file
- The AI suggests edits in-place rather than making you copy-paste from a chat window
- Tab completion that actually predicts your next edit, not just the next word
The shit that'll bite you:
- They switched from "500 requests" to usage credits worth about $20 of API costs - sounds fair until you use Composer for anything substantial
- I burned through a month's worth of credits in 8 days building a React dashboard (granted, I was being stupid and letting it regenerate the same components over and over)
- Switching from VS Code means losing years of muscle memory and having to reconfigure everything again
- Extensions ecosystem is smaller - I couldn't find my favorite REST client plugin and had to switch back to VS Code for API testing
Real experience: When Composer works, it's magic. When it doesn't, you're debugging AI-generated spaghetti code at 2am wondering why you trusted a machine to write your authentication logic. The overage notifications are passive-aggressive as hell.
Windsurf: Free Feels Too Good to Be True (Because It Probably Is)
Windsurf is free for individual developers, which immediately makes me suspicious. How the hell do they make money? Answer: they're betting on enterprise sales and collecting your code to train their models.
Why it's actually good:
- The "Flow" agent writes code while you're not looking (scary but useful)
- No usage caps or surprise billing
- Built on top of VS Code so your extensions work
- Local processing options for sensitive code
The catch with free shit:
- You're the product - your code helps train their models unless you opt out (and good luck finding that setting)
- Once they hit their user targets, pricing will appear faster than you can say "Series B"
- Support? What support? You get Discord and GitHub issues
- Codeium could pivot to enterprise-only and leave individual devs hanging
My take: I use it for side projects where I don't care if the code gets scraped. For client work? Hell no. You need someone to blame when shit breaks at 3am.
Sourcegraph Cody: Enterprise-Grade Overkill
Cody costs $19/month and it's built for big teams with huge codebases - like 50+ devs working on millions of lines of legacy code that need the AI to actually understand their architecture.
Where Cody shines:
- Actually understands large codebases instead of just the current file
- Repository-wide refactoring that doesn't break everything
- Enforces your team's coding standards and architectural patterns
- Works with enterprise security requirements (SOC2, etc.)
Where it falls short:
- Over-engineered for personal projects or small teams
- Requires Sourcegraph setup for full functionality
- The learning curve is steep if you just want basic code completion
- Performance can be slow on large repositories
Who should use it: Big engineering teams where consistency matters more than speed.
Pieces: The Local-First Alternative That Actually Respects Privacy
Pieces does something different: it runs everything locally and focuses on managing your code snippets and context across tools rather than generating new code.
What makes Pieces unique:
- Everything runs on your machine - no code sent to the cloud
- Syncs context between your browser, terminal, IDE, and Slack
- Smart snippet management with automatic tagging and search
- Works as a productivity layer on top of other AI tools
The limitations:
- Not really a code generation tool like the others
- Requires more setup and configuration than plug-and-play alternatives
- The UI feels clunky compared to integrated editor solutions
- Feature set is narrower - it's a tool, not a coding partner
Best for: Developers who want AI assistance without sending their code to Microsoft, Google, or some startup that might not exist next year.
What I Actually Use
After three months of testing, I'm using Cursor for new projects (despite the billing anxiety) and Copilot for legacy stuff where I need it to work with existing workflows.
Windsurf is my "fuck around and find out" tool for experiments. Cody sits unused because our codebase isn't big enough to justify the complexity. Pieces? I tried it for a week and went back to just using grep.
The real shit-sandwich is that switching costs you 2-3 weeks of productivity while you fight with new shortcuts and figure out why your workflow is broken. Budget for that pain.
None of these tools are perfect. But if you pick based on your actual needs instead of marketing bullshit, you might actually ship faster.
Speaking of actual costs - let's talk about what you're really going to spend when you factor in all the hidden garbage that marketing conveniently forgets to mention.