Choosing between agentic coding tools
By Editorial team ·
Editor, plugin or cloud agent — the decision depends on your codebase, not the benchmarks.
Three shapes of AI coding tool now exist and they suit different situations.
Plugins like GitHub Copilot and Tabnine add completion to the editor you already use. Lowest friction, easiest to roll out, weakest on multi-file work.
AI-native editors like Cursor and Windsurf treat the whole repository as context. Best for real feature work and refactors, at the cost of switching editors and higher per-seat spend.
Cloud agents like Replit and Lovable skip local setup entirely and are excellent for prototypes and small apps, less suited to large existing codebases.
Pick by codebase size and how much supervision you are willing to give. Every one of these still needs code review.