Factory is paid, with no free tier. Windsurf is freemium — a usable free tier with paid plans above it. Factory is listed under Autonomous Coding Agents and Windsurf under AI IDEs & Editors, so they overlap rather than match exactly. Neither is ranked above the other — Flocci carries no sponsored placement.
Factory is paid, with no free tier and is listed for enterprise 'Droids' across the whole SDLC. Windsurf is freemium — a usable free tier with paid plans above it and is listed for agentic IDE with the Cascade flow. Factory sits in Autonomous Coding Agents, Windsurf in AI IDEs & Editors.
Windsurf is the cheaper starting point: it is freemium — a usable free tier with paid plans above it, while Factory is paid, with no free tier. Pricing tiers here come from the catalog, not from a promotional page.
Choose Factory if you need enterprise 'Droids' across the whole SDLC; choose Windsurf if you need agentic IDE with the Cascade flow. Flocci AI Tools does not rank one above the other — it shows both feature sets side by side and lets the requirement decide.
| Factory | Windsurf | |
|---|---|---|
| Pricing tier | PaidLeaving soon | Free tier + paid plans |
| Free to start | No (leaving) | Yes |
| Category | Code & Development | Code & Development |
| Type | Autonomous Coding Agents | AI IDEs & Editors |
| Listed capabilities |
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| Tags | agent, factory, droids, enterprise, sdlc, autonomous | ide, windsurf, cascade, agent, cognition, free |
| Website | factory.ai | windsurf.com |
| Full page | Factory details → | Windsurf details → |
| Alternatives | Factory alternatives → | Windsurf alternatives → |