Windsurf says Anthropic is limiting its direct entry to Claude AI fashions
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 publish on X that Anthropic gave Windsurf little discover for this alteration, 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 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 dissatisfied by this choice and brief discover.”
In a weblog publish, Windsurf stated it has some capability with third-party inference suppliers, however not sufficient, so this alteration might create short-term availability points for Windsurf customers making an attempt to entry Claude.
The choice comes just some weeks after Anthropic appeared to go over Windsurf through 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 costlier and sophisticated for builders to entry Claude 4. In the meantime, different in style 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 amass Windsurf in April. On the similar time, Anthropic — whose AI fashions are a favourite amongst builders — has invested extra in its personal AI-coding purposes. In February, Anthropic launched its personal AI coding utility, Claude Code, and in Might, 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 potential to entry Claude 4 on Windsurf through an API key. “Builders may also entry Claude by our direct API integration, our companion 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 in style AI coding instruments similar to Cursor and GitHub Copilot. Nevertheless, Windsurf’s restricted entry to Anthropic’s fashions could also be stunting its development.
A number of Windsurf customers that spoke with TechCrunch had been annoyed by the shortage of direct entry to Anthropic’s finest AI coding fashions.
Ronald Mannak, a startup founder that focuses on Apple’s programming language, Swift, advised TechCrunch that Claude 4 represented a major soar 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 “convey your personal key” answer is costlier and sophisticated than if Windsurf offered the fashions itself.
With regards 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 through e mail that the corporate has at all times believed in offering optionality for customers. On this case, it appears Anthropic has made {that a} bit tougher.