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It's a split decision.
Choose Kiro if you want an assistant that turns prompts into requirements, designs and tasks, then checks behavior with property-based tests. Its credit plans make added capacity easier to price, and it is listed as self-hostable. Choose Windsurf if your team wants one command center for agents, local-to-cloud session handoffs and subagents that open separate pull requests. Both offer free tiers and support ACP; their strengths are workflow structure versus agent coordination.
01Side by side
| Kiro | Windsurf | |
|---|---|---|
| Pricing model | Monthly plans priced by credits; $0.04 per extra credit | Monthly plans with quotas; extra usage at API pricing |
| Free tier | 50 credits/month; open-weight models and Claude Sonnet 4.5 | Light agent quota; unlimited inline edits and Tab completions |
| Self-hosting | Self-hostable; deployment details not published | Vendor doesn't publish self-hosting |
| Integrations | MCP, Figma, Terraform, Open VSX extensions, VS Code settings | Slack, Teams, Linear, Notion, Figma, Vercel, and more |
| Deployment model | Parallel agents run locally or in the cloud | Sessions run locally or in the cloud, with handoff |
| Platforms | Web | Web and macOS |
| Limits and scaling | Published credit allowances and $0.04 add-on rate | Quota increases by plan; API-priced extra usage |
| Agent protocols | Supports ACP and MCP; SDK details not published | Uses ACP; SDK details not published |
Kiro Choose Kiro if
- Choose Kiro if you want requirements, design and tasks before implementation.
- Choose Kiro if property-based tests are part of your coding workflow.
- Choose Kiro if you need a headless CLI for CI/CD.
Windsurf Choose Windsurf if
- Choose Windsurf if you coordinate several coding agents from one command center.
- Choose Windsurf if agents should split work into separate pull requests.
- Choose Windsurf if you need sessions handed between your laptop and cloud.
02Pricing at real usage
Kiro Free includes 50 credits/month. Pro costs $20/user/month for 1,000 credits; Pro+ is $40 for 2,000, Pro Max $100 for 5,000, and Power $200 for 10,000. Extra credits cost $0.04 each. Credit packs range from $5 for 125 credits to $100 and expire after 12 months. Teams/Enterprise credit pooling starts at $20/seat/month, with 500 pooled credits per seat and $0.04 per additional credit.
Windsurf Free includes a light agent quota, limited models, unlimited inline edits and unlimited Tab completions. Pro is $20/month; Max is $200/month with significantly higher quotas. Extra usage is billed at API pricing. Teams costs $80/month plus $40/month per full developer seat. Kiro gives a per-credit add-on rate; Windsurf’s listed pricing does not state a dollar quota or overage rate.
03API, SDKs and integration
Both products support the Agent Client Protocol (ACP), which gives teams a route to work with agents through a shared protocol. Kiro also supports MCP, AGENTS.md and Skills.md, plus Open VSX extensions and VS Code settings in its IDE. Its headless CLI can run in CI/CD to review pull requests and fix bugs; it works with bash, zsh, fish and more than 500 popular CLIs. Kiro’s homepage also describes pulling context from Figma and Terraform.
Windsurf is built around coordinating agents and models through ACP. Its listed integrations include Slack, Microsoft Teams, Linear, Notion, Atlassian, Datadog, Sentry, Figma, Vercel and Stripe, along with language tools such as rust-analyzer, Prettier, clangd, Pyright and gopls. Neither vendor publishes a language-specific SDK or public API contract on these pages. Kiro lists a CLI; Windsurf’s product is presented as a desktop command center and web service.
04Open source, self-hosting and lock-in
Neither product’s open-source licence is stated. Kiro is listed as self-hostable, but its deployment options and the boundary between hosted and self-managed components are not detailed. Windsurf’s self-hosting option is not published; its Enterprise plan lists a dedicated deployment option, without specifying that this is customer-hosted.
Both products support ACP, which can make agent choice less dependent on a single built-in model interface. Kiro also supports MCP and established project files such as AGENTS.md and Skills.md. Those integrations may help when changing tools, but they do not establish that session histories, indexes, specs or other project data can be exported. Neither vendor publishes a data-export path in the listed product details. Ask both vendors about export formats, retention and migration before making agent history part of a production workflow.
Questions people ask
Is Kiro or Windsurf better for production code?
They focus on different controls. Kiro turns prompts into requirements, designs and tasks, checks for contradictions, and uses property-based tests. Windsurf coordinates agents and includes Devin Review to flag bugs and inconsistencies in diffs. Choose based on whether your workflow needs spec checks or centralized agent review; neither feature alone guarantees production correctness.
Which is cheaper for an individual developer?
Both offer a free tier and a $20 individual plan. Kiro Pro includes 1,000 credits/month, with extra credits at $0.04 each. Windsurf Pro includes increased quotas and bills extra usage at API pricing. Your cost depends on usage; Kiro publishes an add-on credit rate, while Windsurf does not list a dollar quota or overage rate.
Can Kiro and Windsurf run coding agents locally and in the cloud?
Yes. Kiro says its parallel agents can run on a local machine or in the cloud. Windsurf supports local and cloud sessions and says a running session can move between them without losing context. Windsurf also emphasizes managing multiple agents from one command center.
Do Kiro and Windsurf offer public APIs or SDKs?
Their listed integration details focus on agent protocols and product integrations, not language-specific SDKs or a public API contract. Both support ACP; Kiro also supports MCP. If you need to embed either product in a service, ask the vendor about API access, SDK availability, authentication and support commitments.