Devin Desktop (formerly Windsurf)
by Cognition AI
The agent-native IDE Windsurf became: one board for local, cloud and third-party coding agents
Devin Desktop is Cognition's agent-native IDE, and the product formerly sold as Windsurf. It pairs a VS Code-compatible editor and custom tab-completion model with a Kanban Agent Command Center that runs local and cloud coding agents, including third-party ones over the open Agent Client Protocol, from one board.
Devin Desktop is the current name of Windsurf, the agentic IDE Cognition acquired on 14 July 2025. TechCrunch reported that the deal took Windsurf's IP, product and every employee Google had not already hired, at an undisclosed price, when the business was running roughly $82 million in ARR with at least 350 enterprise customers and a 250-person team, around 175 of whom remained after Google's reverse-acquihire of the leadership. Cognition rebranded the editor to Devin Desktop on 2 June 2026 and shipped it as an over-the-air update; Cognition's own documentation now writes the product as 'Devin Desktop (Windsurf)'. The editor keeps VS Code extension-marketplace compatibility and its custom completion model, which drives Tab to Jump, Tab to Import and inline suggestions, but its centre of gravity moved from the code canvas to an Agent Command Center: a Kanban-style board tracking every local and cloud agent in one place, with Spaces grouping sessions, pull requests, files and context per piece of work. Cascade, Windsurf's original in-editor agent, was replaced by Devin Local, the same agent harness that powers the Devin CLI. Two things separate it from rival editors. Codemaps produce shareable hierarchical maps of a codebase that visualise execution flow and component relationships for humans and agents alike, and the Agent Client Protocol lets third-party agents run inside the Command Center rather than locking the IDE to one vendor's model. Model choice spans Cognition's own SWE-1.7 plus Claude and GPT variants, routed per task by a selector called Adaptive.
An engineering lead running several coding agents at once who wants them, and rival vendors' agents, managed from one editor rather than four terminals and a browser tab.
Local and cloud agent sessions land on a single Kanban board with review states, so parallel agent work becomes something you can actually supervise.
At a Glance
- Category
- Developer Tools
- Pricing
- Subscription, Usage-based, Freemium, Contact for pricing
- Target Market
- CTOs, VPs of Engineering, Enterprise Developers, Platform Engineering Teams, Engineering Managers
- Deployment
- Cloud-first, Hybrid
- Customers
- Windsurf had at least 350 enterprise customers, hundreds of thousands of daily active users and roughly $82M ARR when Cognition acquired it in July 2025; Cognition has published no figure for Devin Desktop since the rebrand
Key Features
- ✓Agent Command Center
A Kanban board tracking every local and cloud agent session in one view, with in-progress, blocked and ready-for-review states.
- ✓Agent Client Protocol (ACP)
An open protocol letting third-party agents run inside the Command Center, so the editor is not tied to one vendor's model.
- ✓Devin Local
The same autonomous agent harness that powers the Devin CLI, running on your machine and replacing Windsurf's retired Cascade agent.
- ✓Codemaps
Shareable hierarchical maps of a codebase that visualise execution flow and component relationships for both humans and agents.
- ✓Custom tab completion
Cognition's own completion model drives Tab to Jump, Tab to Import and inline suggestions directly inside the editor.
- ✓Adaptive model router
Automatically selects between SWE-1.7, Claude and GPT variants per task instead of pinning the whole workspace to one model.
- ✓VS Code compatibility
Retains the VS Code extension marketplace, keybindings and language-server integrations, which is why the rebrand shipped as an over-the-air update.
Capabilities
Use Cases
- •Supervising parallel agent work
A developer queues several agent sessions on one board and reviews each pull request as that session reaches ready-for-review.
- •Mixed-vendor agent workflows
A team runs third-party agents alongside Devin Local in one editor over ACP, avoiding lock-in to a single model vendor.
- •Onboarding to an unfamiliar codebase
An engineer generates a Codemap to trace execution flow and shares that understanding with both teammates and agents.
- •Local-to-cloud handoff
Work begins in a local Devin session and moves to Devin Cloud when the task outgrows the developer's laptop.
- •Enterprise-governed agent rollout
Admins cap ACU consumption per organisation and per user through usage policies mapped to identity-provider groups.
Ideal For
Best For
- ✓Windsurf users who want to keep their existing editor, extensions, keybindings and MCP connections after the June 2026 rebrand
- ✓Teams that want agents from more than one vendor running inside one IDE through the Agent Client Protocol
- ✓Engineers juggling many parallel agent sessions who need a single board with in-progress, blocked and ready-for-review states
- ✓Organisations already buying Devin Cloud that want the desktop client on the same billing, quotas and identity
- ✓Enterprises that need per-organisation and per-user compute caps enforced through identity-provider group mappings
Not Ideal For
- ✗Anyone who bought Windsurf for its old credit-based pricing: the March 2026 move to fixed daily and weekly quotas raised the effective entry cost, and Reddit and Hacker News reaction to it was hostile
- ✗Teams that need a stable brand and toolchain, since within twelve months the product name, the in-editor agent (Cascade to Devin Local) and the billing model all changed
- ✗Budget-constrained teams on the Teams plan, where Desktop access requires a $40/month full seat and the free flex seats do not include it
- ✗Buyers with heavy compliance requirements who need more than the SOC 2 Type II the docs cite; ISO 27001, HIPAA and FedRAMP status is not stated in the public security page
Integrations
Deployment
Market & Ratings
Windsurf had at least 350 enterprise customers, hundreds of thousands of daily active users and roughly $82M ARR when Cognition acquired it in July 2025; Cognition has published no figure for Devin Desktop since the rebrand
Market Analysis
Pros
- ✓The Agent Client Protocol genuinely opens the editor to rival agents instead of locking it to one vendor's model
- ✓The rebrand shipped as an over-the-air update, so accounts, plans, extensions, keybindings and MCP connections carried over untouched
- ✓The free tier includes the Desktop download rather than gating the editor itself behind a subscription
- ✓Enterprise ACU billing supports per-organisation and per-user limits mapped to identity-provider groups
- ✓Codemaps and the unified local/cloud board address a real problem: parallel agent work is otherwise unsupervisable
Cons
- ✗Pricing moved from Windsurf's credit-based plans to fixed daily and weekly quotas in March 2026; long-time users on Reddit and Hacker News called the result watered down and worse value than the $15/month predecessor
- ✗Cascade was retired outright, so workflows and muscle memory built on Windsurf's original in-editor agent had to be relearned
- ✗Hacker News practitioners describe using it for grunt work and tests while routing higher-level planning to stronger third-party models
- ✗Desktop access is gated behind the $40/month full seat on Teams; the free flex seats are cloud-credit only, so cheap seats cannot use the IDE
- ✗Brand, agent and billing model all changed within twelve months of the acquisition, and the public security page cites only SOC 2 Type II from March 2024
Pricing
Free
$0
- ✓1 seat
- ✓Devin Desktop download
- ✓Limited Devin usage
- ✓Devin Review and DeepWiki access
Pro
From $20/mo
- ✓1 seat, single user only
- ✓Daily and weekly usage quota shared across Devin sessions, CLI and Desktop
- ✓Pay-as-you-go overage credits that roll over and never expire
- ✓Slack, Linear and MCP integrations
Max
From $200/mo
- ✓1 seat, single user only
- ✓Everything in Pro
- ✓Significantly larger weekly quota with no daily cap
Teams
From $80/mo
- ✓Unlimited seats, $80/month minimum
- ✓Full seat $40/month each, includes Desktop access and Pro-equivalent quota
- ✓Flex seat free, shared on-demand credits only, no Desktop access
- ✓On-demand credits shared across the team
Enterprise
Contact for pricing
- ✓Billed in Agent Compute Units at the rate set in the order form
- ✓Per-organisation ACU limits
- ✓Per-user limits via usage policies and IdP group mappings
- ✓Enterprise and organisation-level consumption tracking
Cognition runs four self-serve tiers plus Enterprise. Free gets the Desktop download and limited usage; Pro is $20/month and Max $200/month, both single-seat, and both meter a daily and weekly quota shared across Devin sessions, the CLI and Desktop rather than a credit balance. Teams starts at an $80/month minimum met with any mix of $40/month full seats and prepaid credits, and the distinction matters: only full seats get Desktop access, while free flex seats draw on shared on-demand credits and do not. Enterprise is billed in Agent Compute Units at an order-form rate with per-organisation and per-user caps. The March 2026 switch from Windsurf's credit-based plans to this quota model is the single loudest complaint from long-time users.
Security & Compliance
Connect
Sources
This page was written from 9 sources, 9 on domains other than devin.ai.
- 1.docs.devin.ai — desktop.md
- 2.docs.devin.ai — self serve
- 3.docs.devin.ai — billing
- 4.docs.devin.ai — security.md
- 5.cognition.com — blog
- 6.techcrunch.com — cognition maker of the ai coding agent devin acquires windsu
- 7.hn.algolia.com — hn.algolia.com
- 8.hn.algolia.com — hn.algolia.com
- 9.github.com — CognitionAI
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