Charles Esther
Windsurf, the popular vibe coding startup reportedly being acquired by OpenAI, revealed significant disruptions to its access to Anthropic’s AI models.
The company announced that Anthropic drastically reduced Windsurf’s first-party access to its Claude 3.7 Sonnet and Claude 3.5 Sonnet AI models.
Windsurf CEO Varun Mohan expressed disappointment, stating that the startup received little notice before the change, forcing them to find alternative third-party compute providers to run several of Anthropic’s most popular AI models on their platform.
“We have been very clear to Anthropic that this is not our desire – we wanted to pay them for the full capacity,” Mohan said on X.
Windsurf’s blog post confirmed that although they maintain some capacity with third-party inference providers, it is insufficient to fully replace Anthropic’s models, which may lead to short-term availability problems for users trying to access Claude.
Missed Access to Claude 4 Launch Further Strains Windsurf
This reduction comes shortly after Anthropic appeared to sideline Windsurf during the rollout of Claude 4, Anthropic’s latest and most advanced AI model family for software engineering tasks.
On launch day, Windsurf did not receive direct access to run Claude 4 on its platform and still lacks this access.
As a result, Windsurf relies on a more expensive and complex workaround, limiting developers’ ease of access to Claude 4.
Meanwhile, other AI coding tools like Anysphere’s Cursor, Cognition’s Devin, and Microsoft’s GitHub Copilot secured direct access to Claude 4 models at launch.
Growing AI Coding Market and Industry Competition
The AI-assisted coding sector, also called vibe coding, has recently seen increased competition and rapid growth.
OpenAI reportedly closed a deal to acquire Windsurf in April, signaling strong interest in this space.
At the same time, Anthropic has been investing heavily in its own AI coding applications.
In February, Anthropic launched Claude Code, its proprietary AI coding app, followed by the first-ever Code with Claude developer conference in May.
Anthropic Prioritizes Sustainable Partnerships, Limits Access
Anthropic spokesperson Steve Mnich told TechCrunch that the company is “prioritizing capacity for sustainable partnerships that allow us to effectively serve the broader developer community.”
He noted that Claude 4 is still accessible on Windsurf via an API key and through Anthropic’s direct API integration and partner ecosystem.
Windsurf’s Growth and User Frustrations
Windsurf has seen rapid growth, reaching $100 million in annual recurring revenue (ARR) in April as it competes with popular AI coding tools like Cursor and GitHub Copilot.
However, limited access to Anthropic’s models may be hindering Windsurf’s expansion.
Some Windsurf users shared frustrations with TechCrunch over the lack of direct access to Anthropic’s most advanced AI coding models.
Ronald Mannak, a startup founder focused on Apple’s Swift programming language, said Claude 4 brought a major leap in capabilities for his work.
Despite being a Windsurf user since late 2024, Mannak recently switched to Cursor to better vibe code with Claude 4.
Temporary Workaround and Challenges
To support Claude 4 users in the short term, Windsurf allows them to connect their own Anthropic API keys to their Windsurf accounts.
Developers have noted that this “bring your own key” approach is more costly and complicated compared to having Windsurf provide the models directly.
Optionality Remains Key in Vibe Coding
In the vibe coding world, supporting multiple AI models from leading developers is crucial as new models from OpenAI, Google, and Anthropic frequently outperform each other.
Windsurf spokesperson Payal Patel told TechCrunch that the company has always valued offering users optionality in AI models.
However, she acknowledged that Anthropic’s recent decisions have made maintaining that optionality more challenging.
Windsurf now faces the task of navigating shifting partnerships and industry dynamics while continuing to deliver value to developers eager for flexible, high-performance AI coding tools.
