Windsurf, the favored vibe coding startup that’s reportedly being acquired by OpenAI, stated Anthropic considerably diminished its first-party entry to its Claude 3.7 Sonnet and Claude 3.5 Sonnet AI fashions.
Windsurf CEO Varun Mohan stated in a post on X that Anthropic gave Windsurf little discover for this modification, and the startup now has to search 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 want – we wished to pay them for the complete capability,” stated Mohan on X. “We’re upset by this resolution and brief discover.”
In a blog post, Windsurf stated it has some capability with third-party inference suppliers, however not sufficient, so this modification might create short-term availability points for Windsurf customers attempting to entry Claude.
The choice comes only a few 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 provide business main efficiency on software program engineering duties.
On launch day, Windsurf stated it didn’t obtain direct entry from Anthropic to run Claude 4 on its platform, and nonetheless hasn’t. This compelled the corporate to depend on a workaround that’s dearer and sophisticated for builders to entry Claude 4. In the meantime, different standard 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 current months. OpenAI reportedly closed on a deal to acquire Windsurf in April. On the similar 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 utility, Claude Code, and in Could, the startup held its first Code with Claude developer convention.
“We’re prioritizing capability for sustainable partnerships that permit us to successfully serve the broader developer group,” stated Anthropic spokesperson Steve Mnich in an e-mail to TechCrunch on Tuesday, noting that it’s nonetheless attainable to entry Claude 4 on Windsurf by way of an API key. “Builders may entry Claude by way of our direct API integration, our accomplice ecosystem, and different growth instruments.”
Windsurf has grown shortly this 12 months, reaching $100 million ARR in April, in an try to meet up with extra standard AI coding instruments reminiscent of Cursor and GitHub Copilot. Nevertheless, Windsurf’s restricted entry to Anthropic’s fashions could also be stunting its progress.
A number of Windsurf customers that spoke with TechCrunch have been pissed off by the shortage of direct entry to Anthropic’s finest AI coding fashions.
Ronald Mannak, a startup founder that makes a speciality of Apple’s programming language, Swift, informed TechCrunch that Claude 4 represented a big leap in capabilities for his workloads. Whereas Mannak has been a Windsurf buyer since late 2024, he’s switched to utilizing Cursor in current weeks in order that he can vibe code extra simply with Claude 4.
As a short-term answer to help 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 sophisticated 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 help AI fashions from all of the main builders.
Windsurf spokesperson Payal Patel tells TechCrunch by way of e-mail that the corporate has all the time believed in offering optionality for customers. On this case, it appears Anthropic has made {that a} bit more difficult.