Cursor, Windsurf, and Claude Code Settle Into a Three-Horse Race

Two years ago this category was a free-for-all with a new tool every week. Now it has consolidated to roughly three names that serious engineering teams actually pay for, and the differences between them are becoming stylistic: control vs. speed vs. depth. If you run engineering, the main cost is no longer the tool — it is the decision fatigue of letting every developer pick their own. Pick one, standardize, and move on. If you are a developer, the skill worth practicing is not "which tool is best" but "how do I review AI output fast enough that it is actually a time saver." The people who will look most productive this year are not the ones using the fanciest agent — they are the ones with the sharpest review reflex.