Windsurf vs GitHub Copilot

The condition that decides this pair is whether your developers will change editors. GitHub Copilot is an extension and service that works in VS Code, Visual Studio, JetBrains IDEs, Xcode, Eclipse and Neovim, on github.com and in Copilot CLI, so nobody has to move. Devin Desktop, Cognition's name since June 2, 2026 for the Windsurf editor, is its own VS Code-derived editor with an agent command center, and its JetBrains plugin is in maintenance mode. For a team with mixed editors, Copilot is the default; Devin Desktop wins when the developers who will use it already work in a VS Code-style editor and want their agents managed in one window.

Copilot costs half as much per seat and meters agent work in credits

On the same monthly, per-user basis, Copilot costs half or less of Devin Desktop at each listed tier: Pro is $10 against $20, the top individual plan (Copilot Max and Devin Max) is $100 against $200, and 10 developers pay $190 a month on Copilot Business against $400 on Devin Teams, whose $80 monthly minimum is met once two full seats are bought.

Both price agent work by each model's token cost rather than by a count of requests, but they package the allowance differently. Copilot converts each request into AI Credits at $0.01 each, gives Business seats 1,900 credits a month pooled across the organization, and bills extra usage by default unless an admin disables it. Devin Desktop gives each self-serve seat a token-based daily and weekly quota that covers the desktop app, the Devin CLI and Devin Cloud sessions; at the limit, paid plans buy extra usage at API list prices and Free waits for the reset. Enterprise Devin is billed in ACUs instead.

Devin runs several agents in one editor; Copilot's agents follow your IDE and GitHub issues

Copilot's agent mode runs in the IDE you already use, and its cloud agent takes a GitHub issue and returns a pull request on every paid plan. Devin Desktop puts its agents in one editor: Devin Local is now the default local agent, with Cascade kept as a legacy option, and the agent command center also runs Devin Cloud sessions and, on Pro, Max and Teams, third-party agents such as Codex and Claude Agent over ACP, billed by their own vendors. Copilot Pro+, Max, Business and Enterprise also run Claude and Codex as third-party agents, in public preview, so the difference is one command center against agents spread across the IDE and github.com. Tab completions and inline edits are unlimited on every Devin plan, Free included; Copilot Free caps completions at 2,000 a month.

Single sign-on and training terms favor Copilot Business

• Single sign-on. Copilot Business includes SAML SSO at $19 a user. On Devin, SSO, SCIM and role-based access are Enterprise features for new customers, so a new team that needs SSO pays Enterprise's custom price instead of $40 a seat.
• Training on code. Copilot does not train on Business interaction data. Devin may train on data by default, and any paid plan can opt out, on Teams through an admin setting.

When Devin Max is the better buy

A developer who runs agents for hours every day is the case for Devin. Devin Max ($200) has no daily cap, its quota refreshes weekly rather than on the first of the month, and the same quota covers local, CLI and cloud agent sessions. Copilot Max costs half as much for 20,000 credits a month. Cognition describes Max's quota only as significantly higher than Pro's, so the way to compare is a week of real work on each.

Switching to Devin means a new editor; switching to Copilot means losing the command center

Devin Desktop imports VS Code and Cursor settings, but JetBrains users either stay on a plugin in maintenance mode or run Devin as an agent inside their JetBrains IDE. Moving to Copilot means giving up Devin's single command center, while Copilot's extension installs into the editor each developer already uses. Both have a free plan, so a pilot can start on Copilot Free or Devin Free before anyone pays for seats. Windsurf pricing and GitHub Copilot pricing cover each plan ladder.