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Amazon Q 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

Amazon Q
Ranking in AI Code Assistants
1st
Average Rating
8.4
Reviews Sentiment
3.7
Number of Reviews
20
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
Windsurf
Ranking in AI Code Assistants
4th
Average Rating
7.8
Reviews Sentiment
5.3
Number of Reviews
4
Ranking in other categories
IDE (4th), AI Software Development (9th)
 

Mindshare comparison

As of January 2026, in the AI Code Assistants category, the mindshare of Amazon Q is 7.9%, up from 2.8% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Windsurf is 9.0%, down from 20.1% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
AI Code Assistants Market Share Distribution
ProductMarket Share (%)
Amazon Q7.9%
Windsurf9.0%
Other83.1%
AI Code Assistants
 

Featured Reviews

Uday Boya - PeerSpot reviewer
Ai Research Enthusiast And Developer at ADP
Daily AI assistance has transformed debugging, automation, and rapid project delivery
One improvement for Amazon Q is that I use it in Visual Studio, and in Visual Studio, I am not given an option to upload an image in Amazon Q. Also, this is one part of it. The second part is the context window of Amazon Q is very less compared to other GenAI tools. The moment I would be in a deep research or deep development or deep debugging mode in Amazon Q, the moment I hit the context length of the window, it would ask me to clear the complete context, and it would lose the complete context of the chat that I had previously. The two major pain points are that I have Amazon Q in Visual Studio, but I am not given an option to upload an image as a reference in Amazon Q. The second part is the context window is so limited. The moment I deep dive into some discussion in terms of development or debugging or automation, I hit a context length of the window, and the moment I hit it, it would lose the complete context. It has an option of summarizing the complete context and having it as a memory, but it would not be sufficient because I would have given a lot of details in the chat by that time. I have mentioned the two points earlier, so those are the only two points that I have in mind for improvements needed for Amazon Q.
reviewer2748786 - PeerSpot reviewer
Founding BackEnd Engineer
Enhancing productivity with advanced code generation and low-cost accessibility
What they can do further and venture into next is to provide a CLI environment, similar to the command-line interface environment that Cursor offers. It allows for running a cursor agent from the command line to make changes, review pull requests, or access certain other capabilities. These capabilities are currently not in Windsurf. Windsurf focuses on the productivity and the ID/editor part. I would rather look for the inclusion of pull request reviews or a kind of a TRD or technical requirement general documentation generation, or system diagram generation directly from the codebase in Windsurf itself. These should be the next obvious features they launch for developers. In our team, there are certain people who use Windsurf regularly and appreciate using it. However, it is not a collaborative tool where someone is going to use the same tool and interact in the same IDE. Everyone does their local development, pushes it to different Git branches, someone reviews the PR, and then merges the branch. It is very localized in that sense.

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"The explanation and documentation capabilities are excellent."
"Amazon Q really helps in those types of situations, and when I get stuck, when I don't know what the code is supposed to mean, or if I'm just stuck in a loop and can't go forward, Amazon Q develops and gives me a better solution of all the possibilities and scenarios I could run."
"Amazon Q provides direct file access and it will integrate the things which you want into the files."
"The best feature of Amazon Q is that it has knowledge of my entire code base, entire repository, and its flows."
"The best feature of Amazon Q is the voice chat, where it talks back to you in normal language and you can query it."
"Amazon Q is able to understand human language regarding the context and scan through folders to ensure best practices are followed."
"I particularly appreciate that Amazon Q offers fast and context-aware responses because it understands the development context and provides relevant answers that save time."
"One thing which I find beneficial in Amazon Q is that even if I don't have much knowledge, such as when using Lambda or Glue in AWS, I only need to have theoretical knowledge of how to use these services and what steps need to be followed."
"As we're experimenting with different AI IDEs, Windsurf has positively impacted my organization by providing options."
"Windsurf has positively impacted my organization by increasing productivity, because during a one-week hackathon we were able to build a product from scratch that would have taken at least two to three weeks, making the time savings substantial."
"As we're experimenting with different AI IDEs, Windsurf has positively impacted my organization by providing options."
"I have seen a return on investment with Windsurf because I have saved time and money and needed fewer resources since using it."
 

Cons

"The model is not able to give answers properly with the traffic it is facing, so it needs to be scaled more."
"While using Amazon Q, I faced some challenges, such as navigating the interface initially."
"While great for standard tasks, it sometimes struggles with more complex or multi-layered problems in large code bases."
"Even though we connected with the support team of AWS, they were not able to resolve our issue, so we were disappointed at that moment."
"Sometimes feedback is needed immediately. It takes a bit of time because there is a workload."
"One most important improvement would be having deeper domain-specific intelligence for Amazon Q."
"If I start with a prompt in one tab and then try to continue in another, it does not retain that context."
"If I start with a prompt in one tab and then try to continue in another, it does not retain that context."
"I chose 7 out of 10 because I've used Cursor as well, and sometimes I feel Cursor hallucinates less compared to Windsurf."
"Since using Windsurf, I notice more errors, but we deliver approximately twice as fast."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Computer Software Company
16%
Manufacturing Company
10%
Financial Services Firm
10%
Comms Service Provider
7%
Comms Service Provider
11%
Computer Software Company
10%
Manufacturing Company
8%
Outsourcing Company
7%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business2
Midsize Enterprise1
Large Enterprise13
No data available
 

Questions from the Community

What needs improvement with Amazon Q?
While using Amazon Q, I faced some challenges, such as navigating the interface initially.
What is your primary use case for Amazon Q?
I have completed a project where the company required testing R&D on Kubernetes. I tested it locally by installing MiniKube, Kubernetes, and all the containers. I configured the Kubernetes MCB ...
What advice do you have for others considering Amazon Q?
I find Amazon Q easy to use, and I believe anyone can use it without needing extensive technical knowledge. I would definitely recommend Amazon Q to other people; it's a great tool. I find it quite...
What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Windsurf?
My experience with Windsurf's pricing, setup cost, and licensing was positive. I received a discount because I joined early, so the license cost or monthly rental of Windsurf has been reasonably pr...
What needs improvement with Windsurf?
I have no suggestions at the moment for how Windsurf can be improved. I would not add more about the needed improvements, even small things that could make my experience better.
What is your primary use case for Windsurf?
I have been using Windsurf off and on for the last year. My main use case for Windsurf is for software development. Currently, we're working on an API, and Windsurf will help us develop a particula...
 

Comparisons

 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

Information Not Available
Dell, Anduril, MongoDB, Zillow, Atlassian
Find out what your peers are saying about Amazon Q vs. Windsurf and other solutions. Updated: December 2025.
881,082 professionals have used our research since 2012.