Windsurf, the favored vibe coding startup that’s reportedly being acquired by OpenAI, says Anthropic considerably decreased its first-party entry to its Claude 3.7 Sonnet and Claude 3.5 Sonnet AI fashions.
Windsurf CEO Varun Mohan mentioned in a put up on X Tuesday that Anthropic gave Windsurf little discover for this variation, and the startup now has to seek out different third-party compute suppliers to run a number of of Anthropic’s hottest AI fashions on its platform.
“We’ve got been very clear to Anthropic that this isn’t our need – we needed to pay them for the complete capability,” mentioned Mohan on X. “We’re dissatisfied by this determination and brief discover.”
In a weblog put up, Windsurf mentioned it has some capability with third-party inference suppliers, however not sufficient, so this variation could create short-term availability points for Windsurf customers attempting to entry Claude.
The choice comes just some weeks after Anthropic appeared to move over Windsurf in the course of the launch of Claude 4, the corporate’s new household of fashions, which supply business main efficiency on software program engineering duties.
On launch day, Windsurf mentioned it didn’t obtain direct entry from Anthropic to run Claude 4 on its platform, and nonetheless hasn’t. This pressured the corporate to depend on a workaround that’s dearer and complex for builders to entry Claude 4. In the meantime, different common AI coding instruments — together with Anysphere’s Cursor, Cognition’s Devin, and Microsoft’s GitHub Copilot — appeared to have direct entry to Claude 4 fashions at launch.
The AI-assisted coding sector, additionally know as vibe coding, has heated up in latest months. OpenAI reportedly closed on a deal to accumulate Windsurf in April. On the identical time, Anthropic — whose AI fashions are a favourite amongst builders — has invested extra in its personal AI-coding functions. In February, Anthropic launched its personal AI coding software, Claude Code, and in Might, the startup held its first Code with Claude developer convention.
“We’re prioritizing capability for sustainable partnerships that enable us to successfully serve the broader developer neighborhood,” mentioned Anthropic spokesperson Steve Mnich in an e-mail to TechCrunch on Tuesday, noting that it’s nonetheless doable to entry Claude 4 on Windsurf by way of an API key. “Builders may entry Claude via our direct API integration, our companion ecosystem, and different growth instruments.”
Windsurf has grown shortly this 12 months, reaching $100 million ARR in April, in an try and meet up with extra common AI coding instruments comparable to Cursor and GitHub Copilot. Nevertheless, Windsurf’s restricted entry to Anthropic’s fashions could also be stunting its development.
A number of Windsurf customers who spoke with TechCrunch had been pissed off by the dearth of direct entry to Anthropic’s finest AI coding fashions.
Ronald Mannak, a startup founder that focuses on Apple’s programming language, Swift, advised TechCrunch that Claude 4 represented a big soar in capabilities for his workloads. Whereas Mannak has been a Windsurf buyer since late 2024, he’s switched to utilizing Cursor in latest weeks in order that he can vibe code extra simply with Claude 4.
As a short-term answer to assist Claude 4, Windsurf permits customers to attach their Anthropic API keys to their Windsurf accounts. Nevertheless, builders have famous that this “carry your individual key” answer is dearer and complex than if Windsurf offered the fashions itself.
In relation to vibe coders, optionality is the secret. Each few months, OpenAI, Google, and Anthropic launch new AI fashions that appear to outperform the business on coding duties. Due to that, it advantages vibe coding startups to assist AI fashions from all of the main builders.
Windsurf spokesperson Payal Patel tells TechCrunch by way of e-mail that the corporate has at all times believed in offering optionality for customers. On this case, it appears Anthropic has made {that a} bit tougher.
