AI Coding Assistant Services Comparison

📍 Service Overview

Service	Website
Kiro	kiro.dev
Cursor	cursor.com
Windsurf	windsurf.com
GitHub Copilot	github.com/copilot
Trae.ai	trae.ai

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1️⃣ Free/Basic Tier Comparison

Rank	Service	Price/Month	Request Limits	Models	Key Features	Best For
1	GitHub Copilot Free	$0	50 agent + 2000 completions	Claude 3.5 Sonnet, GPT-4.1	Code completions, basic chat	Trying GitHub Copilot
2	Kiro Free	$0	50 agentic interactions	Claude Sonnet 4, Claude 3.7 Sonnet	Agent hooks, MCP, Agent steering	Testing Kiro
3	Windsurf Free	$0	25 prompt credits	All premium models	2-week Pro trial, unlimited Tab, 1 deploy	Testing Windsurf
4	Trae.ai Free	$0	10 fast + 50 slow	Claude 3.5 Sonnet, GPT-4o-mini, beta models	1000 advanced + 5000 autocompletions	Budget testing
5	Cursor Hobby	$0	50 agent requests (limited)	Limited model access	2-week Pro trial, limited features	Trying Cursor

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2️⃣ Pro Tier Comparison

Rank	Service	Price/Month	Request Limits	Models	Key Features	Best For
1 ⭐	GitHub Copilot Pro	$10	300 premium requests + unlimited	Claude Sonnet 4, Claude 3.7 Sonnet, GPT-4.1	Code review, coding agent, unlimited chat	Best value option
2	Trae.ai Pro	$10 ($7.5/yr)	600 fast + unlimited slow	Claude 3.5 Sonnet, GPT-4o-mini, all models	Unlimited advanced + autocomplete	Budget developers
3	Windsurf Pro	$15	500 prompt credits	All premium models + SWE-1	5 deploys/day, all features	Individual developers
4	Kiro Pro	$19	1000 agentic interactions	Claude 3.7 Sonnet, Claude Sonnet 4	All free features + higher limits	Regular Kiro development
5	Cursor Pro	$20 ($16/yr)	$20 credit + rate limits	All models (GPT-4.1, Claude, Gemini 2.5 Pro)	Unlimited tabs, background agents, bug bot	Most developers

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3️⃣ Pro+/Ultra Tier Comparison

Rank	Service	Price/Month	Request Limits	Models	Key Features	Best For
1 ⭐	GitHub Copilot Pro+	$39	1500 premium requests	Claude Opus 4, Claude 3.7 Sonnet, Claude Sonnet 4, GPT-4.1	Only option with Claude Opus 4	Quality seekers
2	Kiro Pro+	$39	3000 agentic interactions	Claude 3.7 Sonnet, Claude Sonnet 4	All Pro features + higher limits	Heavy Kiro users
3	Windsurf Teams	$30/user	500 credits per user	All models	Admin dashboard, SSO, team features	Team collaboration
4	Cursor Ultra	$200	20x Pro limits	All models with priority	Maximum usage limits	Power users

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📊 Ranking Criteria

Rankings are based on:

1. Model quality - Claude Opus 4 > Claude 3.7 Sonnet > Claude 3.5 Sonnet > GPT-4.1 > GPT-4o-mini > Gemini 2.5 Pro > SWE-1

   Coding Performance Rankings (Based on SWE-bench Verified)

   • Claude Sonnet 4: 72.7% (80.2% with extended thinking)
   • Claude Opus 4: 72.5% (79.4% with high-compute)
   • Claude 3.7 Sonnet: 62.3%
   • Gemini 2.5 Pro: 63.2%
   • GPT-4.1: 54.6%
   • GPT-4o-mini: lower than GPT-4.1

2. Value proposition - price vs. features

3. Request limits - higher limits for sustained usage

4. Coding performance - SWE-bench & other coding benchmarks

5. Multimodal capabilities - text primary, image generation secondary, vision third, video last

6. Price/request ratio - normalised cost when limits differ

Correct Model Names

• Claude Sonnet 4 • Claude 3.7 Sonnet • Claude 3.5 Sonnet • Claude 3.5 Haiku (lightweight) • Claude Opus 4 (premium) • GPT-4.1 • GPT-4.1 Mini • GPT-4o-mini • Gemini 2.5 Pro • Gemini 2.5 Flash • Gemini 2.5 Flash Lite Preview 06-17 • SWE-1 (Windsurf-specific)

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💡 Recommendations by Use Case

Primary Text-Based Coding

• GitHub Copilot Pro+ ($39 / month) - access to Claude Opus 4 • GitHub Copilot Pro ($10 / month) - top value with Claude Sonnet 4

Multimodal Development (Text + Images)

• Windsurf Pro ($15 / month) - strong multimodal support • Cursor Pro ($20 / month) - great for image-centric workflows

Budget-Conscious Developers

• GitHub Copilot Pro ($10 / month) - hard to beat • Trae.ai Pro ($10 / month) - 600 fast requests

Agent-Based Development

• Kiro plans - spec-driven agentic focus • Windsurf plans - Cascade agent for multi-step tasks

🏆 Final Tier Winners

Free Tier

1. GitHub Copilot Free
2. Kiro Free
3. Windsurf Free

Pro Tier

1. GitHub Copilot Pro
2. Trae.ai Pro
3. Windsurf Pro

Premium Tier

1. GitHub Copilot Pro+
2. Kiro Pro+
3. Windsurf Teams

Note: All pricing and features are current as of July 2025. GitHub Copilot Pro+ is still the only service offering Claude Opus 4 access, making it the prime choice for users needing the most advanced coding model.

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