Windsurf Alternative
Windsurf got acquired. Ours will not be.
In July 2025, Cognition AI acquired Windsurf for ~$250M -- days after Google poached the founding team. The IDE you chose is now a distribution channel for an autonomous agent company. Bodega One is independently owned, locally run, and pays for itself once.
What changed. What you can own instead.
Windsurf (post-acquisition)
- Acquired by Cognition AI (~$250M, July 2025) -- product direction now serves Cognition's roadmap
- Founding CEO and co-founder left for Google before the acquisition closed
- Cloud-dependent -- all code leaves your machine for Cognition's servers
- March 2026 pricing overhaul: Pro raised to $20/mo, new Max tier at $200/mo, flexible credits replaced with strict daily quotas. Sprint on one big project and you hit your limit mid-task.
- Roadmap now driven by integration with Devin autonomous agent -- enterprise focus
Bodega One
- Independent product -- no acquisition risk, no VC exit pressure on your tooling
- One-time purchase: $79 Personal, $109 Pro. Costs stop after day one.
- Local-first -- your code runs on your machine, not Cognition's infrastructure
- BYOLLM: you control which models you use, no platform lock-in
- Air-gap mode: 9 enforcement layers. Zero bytes leave your machine.
Everything Windsurf offered. Plus the things it never could.
Acquisition-Proof
Your Bodega One license cannot be acquired, rebranded, or repriced. You pay once. You own it. No VC roadmap determines what features you get. No acquirer can change what you paid for.
Local-First Architecture
Windsurf requires cloud connectivity for every inference call. Bodega One runs models on your hardware through Ollama and local providers. Your code never leaves your machine unless you choose a cloud LLM provider yourself.
Cost Certainty
Windsurf charges monthly. Cognition now controls that pricing. In March 2026, they dropped flexible credits for strict daily quotas. Sprint on a big project and you hit your limit mid-task. Bodega One is $79 once. After launch day, your total cost is exactly what you paid.
No Roadmap Drift
Windsurf's roadmap now serves Cognition's mission to build autonomous software engineering -- enterprise accounts and Devin integration come first. Bodega One's roadmap is simple: build the best local-first AI IDE for individual developers and small teams.
QEL Verification
Quality Enforcement Layer runs three verification levels on every code change. Pattern checks, compile gates, structural verification. Not a linter. A verification pipeline that catches what raw LLM output misses.
BYOLLM
10+ provider presets. Ollama, LM Studio, OpenAI, Groq, Together AI, OpenRouter, Azure OpenAI, and more. You choose the model. No lock-in to Cognition's model stack or whatever pricing they apply to inference.
The acquisition. The math. The alternative.
What happened to Windsurf
Early 2025
Codeium rebrands to Windsurf. $82M ARR, 350+ enterprise customers, growing fast. Developers love Cascade.
July 2025
Google acquires CEO Varun Mohan and co-founder Douglas Chen in a $2.4B licensing deal. The founding team is gone over a weekend.
July 14, 2025
Cognition AI (makers of Devin) acquires the remaining Windsurf entity -- employees, IP, product, all customers -- for ~$250M.
Post-acquisition
Employees described their mood as "very bleak" before the deal. All received vesting acceleration. The product now lives inside a $10.2B autonomous agent company.
Going forward
Cognition plans to merge Windsurf's IDE with Devin's autonomous agent capabilities. Enterprise customers and agentic workflows come first.
Cost Over Time
| Period | Windsurf | Bodega One |
|---|---|---|
| 1 month | $20/month (quota-based) | $79 one-time |
| 6 months | ~$120 | $79 one-time |
| 12 months | ~$240 | $79 one-time |
| 12 months (Max tier) | $2,400/yr | $79 one-time |
| 24 months | ~$480 | $79 one-time |
Windsurf Pro is $20/month. Max tier is $200/month. Both use daily usage quotas introduced March 2026. Tab autocomplete is unlimited on all plans. Check windsurf.com for current rates.
Your Code, Their Servers
Windsurf is cloud-dependent by architecture. Every inference call leaves your machine and goes to Cognition's infrastructure. Under the acquisition, Cognition controls the data policy. Bodega One runs models locally via Ollama and local providers. In air-gap mode, 9 independent enforcement layers block all network access. Zero bytes leave your machine. Not managed by a $10.2B acquirer. Controlled by you.
Build on infrastructure you control
9 independent air-gap enforcement layers. Any LLM provider you choose. A standalone IDE that does not require a cloud account, a subscription, or someone else's roadmap.
Code that lands clean.
Every file Bodega One writes passes through three verification levels before the change lands. Not a linter. A verification pipeline that Windsurf does not have.
Incremental Verification
Pattern and compile check after every file write.
Micro-Proof Gates
tsc / py_compile runs every second write.
Full Verification
Structural verifier post-loop. Pass threshold 80 for new files.
Switching from
Windsurf.
Windsurf still works fine. Why does the acquisition matter?+
Right now, the product works. The acquisition matters because: pricing is now controlled by a company with different incentives, the founding team that made the product decisions is gone, the roadmap now serves Cognition's autonomous agent strategy, and "works today" and "works in 12 months" are different questions when ownership changes. Developers who relied on Codeium before it became Windsurf already know how product priorities shift after a rebranding. This is a bigger shift.
Windsurf's Cascade feature is unique. Does Bodega One have something similar?+
Cascade is multi-file agentic editing -- you describe a change, it rewrites across your codebase. Bodega One's autonomous agent does the same: it reads, writes, and verifies across your full project with 23 built-in tools including file operations, terminal execution, web search, and code analysis. The difference is Bodega One runs locally. No cloud API call required.
Could Bodega One get acquired too?+
Any company could be acquired. What we can tell you: Bodega One has no VC investors with exit requirements, no board pushing for a liquidity event, and no growth metrics that require an enterprise pivot. We are a bootstrapped product built for developers. More importantly -- your license. When you pay once and own it, a hypothetical future acquisition cannot reprice what you already bought.
What happened to the Windsurf team?+
In July 2025, Google poached Windsurf CEO Varun Mohan and co-founder Douglas Chen in a $2.4B licensing deal. Days later, Cognition AI (makers of Devin) acquired the remaining Windsurf entity for ~$250M. All employees received vesting acceleration. The people who built and ran the product you chose are no longer steering it.
Does the acquisition affect my data privacy?+
Windsurf was always cloud-dependent -- your code was going to their servers before and after the acquisition. Under Cognition's ownership, the data policies and infrastructure are now Cognition's responsibility. Bodega One runs models locally via Ollama and local providers. In air-gap mode, 9 independent enforcement layers block all network access. Zero bytes leave your machine. Not controlled by Cognition. Controlled by you.
When is Bodega One available?+
Beta opens May 2026 for the first 200 users. Full launch is July 6, 2026. Join the waitlist now and you will be first to know when beta invites go out.
Ready to make the switch? Read the step-by-step Windsurf migration guide for a full walkthrough -- what carries over, what's different, and how to set up your local stack.
Own your IDE. Not a subscription to someone else's acquisition.
One-time purchase. Local-first. 23 built-in tools. An autonomous agent that verifies its own work. No acquirer can reprice what you already own.
Join the Waitlist$79 Personal. $109 Pro. One-time. Windows, macOS, Linux.