[HN Gopher] Windsurf SWE-1: Our First Frontier Models
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Windsurf SWE-1: Our First Frontier Models
Author : arittr
Score : 163 points
Date : 2025-05-15 18:47 UTC (1 days ago)
(HTM) web link (windsurf.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (windsurf.com)
| firejake308 wrote:
| I'm confused why they are working on their own frontier models if
| they are going to be bought by OpenAI anyway. I guess this is
| something they were working on before the announcement?
| kristopolous wrote:
| Must have been. These things take months.
| anshumankmr wrote:
| Getting more money perhaps also, if they believed their model
| to be good, and had amassed some good training data Open AI can
| leverage, apart from the user base.
| allenleein wrote:
| It seems OpenAI acquired Windsurf but is letting it operate
| independently, keeping its own brand and developing its own
| coding models. That way, if Windsurf runs into technical
| problems, the backlash lands on Windsurf--not OpenAI. It's a
| smart way to innovate while keeping the main brand safe.
| riffraff wrote:
| But doesn't this mean they have twice the costs in training?
| I was under the impression that was still the most expensive
| part of these companies' balance.
| kcorbitt wrote:
| It's very unlikely that they're doing their own pre-
| training, which is the longest and most expensive part of
| creating a frontier model (if they were, they'd likely brag
| about it).
|
| Most likely they built this as a post-train of an open
| model that is already strong on coding like Qwen 2.5.
| rfoo wrote:
| mid/post training does not cost that much, except maybe
| large scale RL, but even this is more of an infra problem.
| If anything, the cost is mostly in running various
| experiments (i.e. the process of doing research).
|
| It is very puzzling why "wrapper" companies don't (and
| religiously say they won't ever) do something on this
| front. The only barrier is talents.
| anshumankmr wrote:
| You might be underestimating the barrier to hiring the
| really smart people. Open AI/Google etc would be hiring
| and poaching people like crazy, offering cushy bonuses
| and TCs that would make blow your mind.(Like say Noam
| Brown at Open AI) And some of the more ambitious ones
| would start their own ventures (like say Ilya etc.).
|
| That being said I am sure a lot of the so called wrapper
| companies are paying insanely well too, but competing
| with FAANGMULA might be trickier for them.
| NitpickLawyer wrote:
| FAANGMULA ... Microsoft, Uber?, L??, Anthropic? Who's the
| L?
| Archonical wrote:
| Lyft.
| riffraff wrote:
| A is Airbnb, afair.
| whywhywhywhy wrote:
| Any half decent and methodical software engineer can fine
| tune/repurpose a model if you have the data and the money
| to burn on compute and experiment runs, which they do.
| anshumankmr wrote:
| Fine tuning/distilling etc is fine. I was speaking to the
| original commenter's question about research, which is
| where things are trickier. Fine tuning is something I
| even managed and Unsloth has removed even barriers for
| training some of the more commonly used open source
| models.
| brookst wrote:
| They can absolutely do it, but they will get poorer
| results than someone who really understands LLMs. There
| is still a huge amount of taste and art in the sourcing
| and curation of data for fine tuning.
| OtherShrezzing wrote:
| This is effectively how Microsoft is treating OpenAI.
| ActionHank wrote:
| Windsurf is a hedge against MS + VSCode and GH + copilot.
|
| OAI is trying frantically to build a moat without doing any
| digging.
| sunshinekitty wrote:
| This is an incredibly premature statement to make. The
| acquisition announcement is days old.
| dyl000 wrote:
| openAI models have an issue where they are pretty good at
| everything but not incredible at anything. They're too well
| rounded.
|
| for coding you use anthropic or google models, I haven't found
| anyone who swears by openAI models for coding... Their
| reasoning models are either too expensive or hallucinate
| massively to the point of being useless... I would assume the
| gpt 4.1 family will be popular for SWE's
|
| Having a smaller scope model (agentic coding only) allows for
| much cheaper inference and windsurf building its own moat (so
| far agentic IDE's haven't had a moat)
| jjani wrote:
| > openAI models have an issue where they are pretty good at
| everything but not incredible at anything. They're too well
| rounded.
|
| This suggests OpenAI models do have tasks they're better at
| than the "less rounded" competition, who have taks they're
| weaker in. Could you name a single sucg task (except for
| image generation, which is an entirely different usecase),
| that OpenAI models are better at than Gemini 2.5 and Claude
| 3.7 without costing at least 5x as much?
| seunosewa wrote:
| They were working on the model before the acquisition. It makes
| sense to test it and see how it does instead of throwing the
| work away. Their data will probably be used to improve gpt-4.1,
| o4 mini high, and other OpenAI coding models
| jstummbillig wrote:
| Why would OpenAI not let smart people work on models? That
| seems to be what they do. The point is: They are no longer
| "their own" models. They are now OpenAI models. If they suck,
| if they are redundant, if there is no idea there that makes
| sense, that effort will not continue indefinitely.
| blixt wrote:
| > Enabled from the insight from our heavily-used Windsurf Editor,
| we got to work building a completely new data model (the shared
| timeline) and a training recipe that encapsulates incomplete
| states, long-running tasks, and multiple surfaces.
|
| This data is very valuable if you're trying to create fully
| automated SWEs, while most foundation model providers have
| probably been scraping together second hand data to simulate long
| horizon engineering work. Cursor probably has way more of this
| data, and I wonder how Microsoft's own Copilot is doing (and how
| they share this data with the foundation model providers)...
| figassis wrote:
| And is probably why OpenAI paid $$$ to acquire
| lemming wrote:
| The company that is best placed to collect tons of high quality
| data of this type is undoubtedly Google. They've had
| publications talking about how they capture data from their in
| house SWE tools and use it to improve their tooling.
| blixt wrote:
| They certainly can automate their own SWE but I wonder if
| that's as good as getting full computer use logs (terminal,
| web browsing, code acceptance/rejection, etc etc -- as
| claimed in the linked article) from millions of individuals
| and thousands of companies all with their quirky technology
| setups.
| throwaway314155 wrote:
| This summarizes Google's approach to software engineering
| well; just pretend the outside world doesn't exist and the
| "Google way" is the only way.
| whywhywhywhy wrote:
| There is a world where the wrapper makers surpass the current
| model makers in their area of focus. Cursor/Windsurf have all
| the data on when people got so frustrated with Claude they
| switched to Gemini/GPT and also all the data of when the
| problem was actually solved and when it wasn't.
| dyl000 wrote:
| it was only a matter of time, they have too much good data to not
| train their own models, not to mention that claude API calls were
| probably killing their profitability.
|
| open source alternative https://huggingface.co/SWE-bench/SWE-
| agent-LM-32B
|
| though I haven't been able to find a mlx quant that wasn't
| completely broken.
| aquir wrote:
| It's a shame that my development work needs a specific VSCode
| extension (domain specific language for ERP systems) so my
| options are VSCode+Copilot or Cursor.
| albertot wrote:
| you can use the codeium extension I believe no? Also I think
| that if the license of the extension that you are using permits
| it you could export that extension to the open source store
| DrBenCarson wrote:
| You can try Cline is VSCode as well, many engineers swear by it
| aitchnyu wrote:
| Aider runs in your terminal and you can make comments against
| your code in any editor and it will execute your requests. It
| can use any model. CLine, mentioned in sibling comment is is
| same space.
| tintor wrote:
| Aider wastes tokens like crazy.
| TiredOfLife wrote:
| Windsurf is also a VS Code fork like Cursor
| knes wrote:
| Check augmentcode.com
| antirez wrote:
| So because they need to have a better business model, they will
| try to move users to weaker models compared to the best
| available? This "AI inside the editor" thing makes every day less
| sense in many dimensions: it makes you not really capable of
| escaping the accept, accept, accept trap. It makes the design
| interaction with the LLM too much about code and too little about
| the design itself. And you can't do what many of us do: have that
| three subscriptions for the top LLMs available (it's 60$ for 3,
| after all) and use each for it's best. And by default write your
| stuff without help if LLMs are not needed in a given moment.
| visarga wrote:
| > it makes you not really capable of escaping the accept,
| accept, accept trap
|
| The definition of vibe coding - trust the process, let it make
| errors and recover
| conartist6 wrote:
| "press pay to think for me button" "press pay to think for me
| button" "press pay to think for me button" "press pay to
| think for me button" "press pay to think for me button" I
| love it
| DrBenCarson wrote:
| "Hmm seems we're very far off course but we have thousands
| of lines...I can't figure all that out rn...press magic
| thinking button"
| ipnon wrote:
| I don't think they are targeting software engineers as users.
| They are seeking those on the software engineering margins,
| users who know what Python and for-loops are but don't care to
| configure Aider and review each of the overwhelming number of
| models released daily. They want to tell the editor to add
| function foo to bar.py. I suspect this latter market segment is
| much larger than the former!
| bluelightning2k wrote:
| I don't like or agree with this take. You're basically saying -
| "something good exists, so why try to improve upon it".
|
| Their stated goal is to improve on the frontier models. It's
| ambitious, but on the other hand they were a model company
| before they were an IDE company (IIRC) and they have a lot of
| data, and the scope is to make a model which is specialized for
| their specific case.
|
| At the very least I would expect they would succeed in
| specializing a fronteir model for their use-case by feeding
| their pipeline of data (whether they should _have_ that data to
| begin with is another question).
|
| The blog post doesn't say much about the model itself, but
| there's a few candidates to fine tune from.
| infecto wrote:
| You've got a couple of ideas colliding here, let me try to
| unpack them.
|
| First, most of the major players already have their own models
| or have been developing them for some time. Your take feels a
| bit reductive. Take Windsurf pre-acquisition, for example,
| their risk was being too tightly coupled to third-party
| vendors. It's only logical to assume that building task- or
| language-specific models will ultimately help reduce costs and
| offer more control.
|
| As for the other point: in my experience, trying to fully
| leverage LLMs actually makes me more prescriptive in my
| designs. I spend more time thinking through architecture and
| making my code modular, more so than when I wasn't using an
| LLM. I'm sure others may design less or take shortcuts, but for
| me it's pushed the opposite behavior. Is it the "right" way?
| I'm not sure, but I'm enjoying it and staying productive.
| phillipcarter wrote:
| I think the point is that the UX favors accepting code
| changes as the primary action, rather than using the chat
| interface as an ideation tool. It's quite valid, because as a
| user of all these tools, Winsurf and Cursor very much do try
| to make you slap the Accept button uncritically!
| infecto wrote:
| Does it though? I use the chat option quite a bit in the
| tools. The only UX that favors accept pattern is tab which
| makes sense.
| phillipcarter wrote:
| It does. Defaults matter, and the defaults for these
| tools are agent mode with code changes meant to be
| accepted, rather than forcing you to read the code and
| manually apply those changes.
|
| Note: I'm not saying that's a bad thing! It's
| significantly more convenient for many use cases, so I
| can see why it's a default. But the incentive being
| created is to accept first, analyze later.
| keeganpoppen wrote:
| i think this comment is just a reflection of how the world has
| not caught up with the inevitable shift of "software
| engineering" up further into "idea space". i completely agree
| that the tooling has not caught up with this new world order
| yet. personally, i think "true software _engineering_ " is more
| valuable than ever in the AI era, but the tools for actually
| realizing this are woefully behind.
| bhl wrote:
| Slightly weaker, but cheaper models mostly good for Windsurf
| only. As a developer, I would rather have stronger models I can
| throw more money at.
| vunderba wrote:
| _> they will try to move users to weaker models compared to the
| best available_
|
| _> you can 't do what many of us do: have three subscriptions
| and use each for its best_
|
| I don't think has anything to do with whether or not AI is in
| the editor so much as it is the difference between a
| subscription (Cursor) vs. a BYOK approach (VS Codium + Cline,
| Zed, etc). Most BYOK plug-ins will let you set up multiple
| profiles against various providers so that you can choose the
| most optimal LLM for the given problem you're trying to solve.
| bluelightning2k wrote:
| Two takes here. Cynical and optimistic.
|
| Cynical take: describing yourself as a full stack AI IDE company
| sounds very invest-able in a "what if they're right" kind of way.
| They could plausibly ask for higher valuations, etc.
|
| Optimistic take: fine tuning a model for their use-case
| (incomplete code snippets with a very specific data model of
| context) should work. Or even has from their claims. It certainly
| sounds plausible that fine-tuning a frontier model would make it
| better for their needs. Whether it's reasonable to go beyond
| fine-tuning and consider pre-training etc. I don't know. If I
| remember correctly they were a model company before Windsurf, so
| they have the skillset.
|
| Bonus take: doesn't this mean they're basically training on
| large-scale gathered user data?
| heymijo wrote:
| FYI, OpenAI acquired Windsurf so valuation is not an issue.
|
| I don't know Varun (their founder/CEO) personally but I get
| highly competent vibes from him. I'd let my skeptical self lean
| on your optimistic take.
| OkGoDoIt wrote:
| I don't think the acquisition has closed yet, maybe this is
| still useful for a leverage/negotiating perspective. And it
| was almost certainly something they were working on before
| the acquisition anyway.
|
| I do think that's an overly cynical way to look at this
| though.
| infecto wrote:
| Can we get arm Linux builds? Would be really nice!
| resters wrote:
| A few points that are getting overlooked:
|
| - OpenAI is buying WindSurf and probably did diligence on these
| models before it decided to invest.
|
| - WindSurf may have collected valuable data from it users that is
| helpful in training a coding-focused AI model. The data would
| give a 6 month lead to OpenAI which is probably worth the $3B.
|
| - Even if Windsurf's frontier models are not better than other
| models for coding, if they excel in a few key areas it would
| justify significant investment in their methodology (see points
| above).
|
| - There are still areas of coding where even the top frontier
| models falter that would seemingly be ripe for improvement via
| more careful training. Notably, making the model better at
| working within a particular framework and version, programming
| language version, etc. Also better support for more obscure
| languages and libraries/versions and the ability to "lock in" on
| the versions that the developer is using. I've wasted a lot of
| time trying to convince OpenAI models to use OpenAI's latest
| Python API -- even when given docs and explicit constraints to
| use the new API, OpenAI frontier models routinely (incorrectly)
| update my code to use old API conventions and even methods that
| have been removed!
|
| Consider that the basic competency of doing a frontier coding
| model well is likely one of the biggest opportunities in AI right
| now (second to reasoning and in my opinion tied with image
| analysis and production). An LLM that can both reason and code
| accurately could read a chapter in a textbook and code a 3D
| animation illustrating all of the concepts as a one-shot
| exercise. We are far from that at present even in OpenAI's best
| stuff.
| keeganpoppen wrote:
| this is clearly the right take... it's fun to semi-dunk on "how
| on earth is that the valuation", but this is one of those rare
| cases where the tech and platform are genuinely more valuable
| in the hands of the acquirer than they ever could be in the
| hands of the acquiree. because i think windsurf has executed as
| well as one possibly could in the space, but openai is the SOTA
| model king, and i don't see that changing anytime soon.
| dghlsakjg wrote:
| Minor nit: OpenAI is in a three way tie for SOTA models with
| Google and Anthropic. They are the king of marketing
| attention, studio Ghibli imitation, and consumer
| subscriptions, though.
| libraryofbabel wrote:
| Thanks - this does help contextualize the $3B acquisition. When
| the story first broke all they seemed to be paying for was a
| coding agent (of which there are sooo many out there) and the
| large windsurf user base (but with no moat). So a lot of us
| were rather skeptical. The valuation is still _kinda_ insane, I
| think, but Windsurf's ability to train a frontier model - and
| with a _much_ smaller team than the big AI shops - is the key
| differentiator from the Clines, Cursors, Aiders etc.
|
| It is a bit of a shame that we'll never get to see what they
| could do on their own. But I hope their clearly very talented
| employees do very well out of this.
| resters wrote:
| > Thanks - this does help contextualize the $3B acquisition.
|
| Agreed. My initial reaction to the $3B acquisition was
| similar to yours. Seeing this announcement made me rethink it
| a bit.
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