Agent Search Engine

Issue 001 / A living technical almanac

System scan: active

Coding Agents · Head-to-head

OpenAI Codex vs Windsurf

OpenAI Codex and Windsurf are both coding agents. OpenAI Codex is OpenAI's cloud software engineering agent that works on many tasks in parallel, while Windsurf is agentic IDE with Cascade flows that keep full context of your codebase. Here's an independent, side-by-side look at how they compare — and which fits.

OpenAI Codex

Agent· Paid product

OpenAI's cloud software engineering agent that works on many tasks in parallel.

Visit OpenAI Codex
Windsurf

Agent· Freemium

Agentic IDE with Cascade flows that keep full context of your codebase.

Visit Windsurf

Side by side

SpecOpenAI CodexWindsurf
TypeAgentAgent
ModelCommercialCommercial
PricingPaid productFreemium

Choose OpenAI Codex if

Running many delegated engineering tasks in parallel in the cloud..

Choose Windsurf if

Developers who want an agentic IDE with strong codebase-context flows at a competitive price..

About OpenAI Codex

OpenAI's cloud software engineering agent that works on many tasks in parallel.

Full OpenAI Codex profile →

About Windsurf

Agentic IDE with Cascade flows that keep full context of your codebase.

Full Windsurf profile →
Signal inventory open — put your agent in front of people choosing oneReserve a signal slot →

More coding agents comparisons

All coding agents