The short answer
There is no single right AI coding assistant for every team. A small team already working in GitHub may find a plugin such as GitHub Copilot the lowest-friction option. A team that wants an AI-native editor with agent workflows will be looking at Cursor or Windsurf (now Devin Desktop). A team whose bottleneck is reviewing pull requests, including AI-generated ones, is choosing a reviewer such as CodeRabbit, which complements an assistant rather than replacing it. This guide covers the forms, pricing models, documented privacy and admin controls, and a scoring template for a short evaluation.
Plan details are as listed on 24 October 2026 and may have changed; we did not test any product hands-on. See AI coding tools for more options and compare to put two tools side by side.
How we chose
We selected four products with verified pricing in SIDAN's catalog that represent different approaches: an AI-native editor (Cursor), a plugin for existing editors and GitHub (GitHub Copilot), a recently renamed IDE with an agent command centre (Windsurf, now Devin Desktop) and a pull-request reviewer (CodeRabbit). Inclusion is not a recommendation, and omission is not a judgment.
The shortlist
Cursor: AI-native editor with an agent
Cursor's documentation describes an AI-first editor with a repository-wide agent, model choice across providers, and customisation through rules, skills and MCP servers. Its pricing page, re-read on 24 October 2026, lists Free at 0, Plus at 8, Premium at 30, Super at 100 and Ultra at 200 USD per month (the page shows a dollar sign without naming a currency; our catalog records USD), with Premium at 4x the usage of Plus, Super 15x and Ultra 50x. Two statements matter for budgeting: "Your allowance refreshes weekly, so one heavy day never wipes out your whole month", and "Third-party models remain available in Cursor at API list price". Teams is shown as 30+ USD per user per month with SAML/OIDC SSO, team privacy settings and custom chat data retention; Enterprise adds SCIM, audit logs and pooled usage.
GitHub Copilot: assistant inside GitHub and existing editors
GitHub's documentation describes inline suggestions, chat, agentic tasks and pull request review, with features depending on plan, client and organisation policy. The plans page, re-read on 24 October 2026, lists Free at 0 with 2,000 completions per month and limited chat and agent usage; Pro at 10, Pro+ at 39 and Max at 100 USD per month. Paid individual plans carry a monthly AI credit allowance plus a flex allotment (Pro: 10 USD base plus 5 USD flex); the FAQ defines 1 AI credit as 0.01 USD. GitHub's plans documentation lists Business at 19 USD and Enterprise at 39 USD per granted seat per month with 1,900 and 3,900 AI credits per user. Completions are unlimited on every paid plan.
Windsurf (Devin Desktop): IDE with an agent command centre
The vendor's Devin Desktop page states that "Devin Desktop is the new name for Windsurf", delivered as an over-the-air update, and that "your plan, pricing, extensions, and settings all carry over automatically". It lists Free at 0, Pro at 20 and Max at 200 USD per month, Teams at 80 USD per month plus 40 USD per month per full seat, and Enterprise by contact. The Devin pricing page adds that each paid plan has a usage allowance refreshing daily and weekly, that extra usage is consumed at API pricing, that Teams includes an admin dashboard with analytics, and that Enterprise lists SAML/OIDC SSO and centralised admin controls. We found no statement about training on customer code on the pages we read, so we make none.
CodeRabbit: AI pull request review
CodeRabbit reviews pull requests on GitHub, GitLab, Azure DevOps and Bitbucket and offers IDE and CLI pre-commit review, per its documentation. Its pricing page, re-read on 24 October 2026, shows per-user prices under a toggle labelled "Annual Plans saves 20%": Essentials 24 USD per user per month billed annually (30 USD monthly) with 1 linked repository and 5 hourly PR reviews per developer; Team 48 USD annually (60 USD monthly) with 5 repositories, 8 hourly reviews and 10 custom pre-merge checks; Advanced 72 USD annually with 10 repositories; Enterprise by contact. Hourly limits are subject to a fair usage policy. Public repositories receive free reviews, and paid plans offer a 14-day trial.
Comparison table
| Criterion | Cursor | GitHub Copilot | Windsurf (Devin Desktop) | CodeRabbit |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Free tier | Yes, limited usage (not quantified) | Yes, 2,000 completions per month | Yes, 0 USD, limits not stated on page | Free reviews for public repositories; 14-day trial on paid |
| Entry paid price (USD, as listed 24 Oct 2026) | 8 per month (Plus, introductory) | 10 per month (Pro) | 20 per month (Pro) | 24 per user per month billed annually (Essentials) |
| Usage model | Weekly-refreshing allowance; third-party models at API list price | AI credits, 1 credit = 0.01 USD | Daily and weekly allowance; extra at API pricing | Hourly PR reviews per developer |
| Team plan as listed | Teams 30+ per user per month | Business 19 per seat per month | Teams 80 per month plus 40 per full seat | Team 48 per user per month annually |
| SSO documented | SAML/OIDC on Teams and Enterprise | Listed for organisation plans, not individual plans | SAML/OIDC on Enterprise | Not found on pages read |
| Audit logs documented | Enterprise | Business and Enterprise (also Pro+ and Max per docs) | Not found on pages read | Not found on pages read |
Editor, plugin, agent or reviewer
The first decision is form, because it determines who has to change their habits.
- A plugin (Copilot in VS Code or JetBrains) leaves the editor alone; adoption and removal are both cheap.
- An AI-native editor (Cursor, Devin Desktop) asks developers to switch editors, trading retraining and extension compatibility for deeper integration.
- An agent is now part of all three assistants: multi-step tasks that edit several files and run commands. Agents consume far more usage than inline completion, which is why allowance and credit models matter.
- A reviewer (CodeRabbit) sits on the pull request, not in the editor, and is often adopted alongside one of the others.
Pricing models, decoded
Three models appear across the four products, and they behave differently under heavy agent use:
- Per user with an allowance (Cursor, Devin Desktop): a flat price buys a usage pool that refreshes on a schedule; overuse waits for the refresh or, for some models, is billed at API list price.
- Per user with credits (GitHub Copilot): the plan price becomes a credit budget (1 credit = 0.01 USD) plus a flex allotment. GitHub's page says that when credits run out you can wait, set a paid budget or switch to a cheaper model, and that on Business and Enterprise Copilot pauses until the next cycle if admins do not allow additional paid usage.
- Per user with activity caps (CodeRabbit): limits on linked repositories and hourly reviews rather than tokens.
Whatever the model, ask what one heavy day of agent use costs and whether an administrator can cap spend.
Privacy, data handling and admin controls
Only documented statements are listed; absence means we found no statement, not that a feature is missing.
- Cursor: its security page says of Privacy Mode, "When enabled, we will not train on your data", that it "can be enabled in settings or by a team or enterprise admin" and that "New team members inherit the team's Privacy Mode settings". The page lists AIUC-1, ISO/IEC 27001:2022 and ISO/IEC 42001:2023 certifications and a SOC 2 Type II attestation.
- GitHub Copilot: the plans page says GitHub may use individual subscribers' interaction data to train AI models, that they can opt out at any time, and that Business and Enterprise are covered by a Data Protection Agreement. GitHub's plans documentation lists organisation-wide policy management, audit logs, content exclusion and excluding specified files for Business and Enterprise.
- Windsurf (Devin Desktop): the pages we read list SAML/OIDC SSO and centralised admin controls on Enterprise and an admin dashboard on Teams. No training or retention statement was found.
- CodeRabbit: its FAQ states "CodeRabbit never uses customer code for model training", that code is shared with OpenAI and/or Anthropic for reviewing purposes only, that Learnings have an opt-out, and that self-hosted CodeRabbit (Enterprise) can opt out of all data retention.
Treat these as vendor claims. If a certification or data term is a requirement, request the report or contract wording before purchase.
Team versus individual plans
Individual plans are cheaper per seat but leave each developer managing their own settings and data choices. Team plans add organisational controls: on the pages we read, Cursor Teams lists SSO, team privacy settings and centralised billing; Copilot Business lists policy control for organisation members; Devin Desktop Teams lists an admin dashboard. With more than a handful of developers or any compliance requirement, price the team tier.
Evaluation steps
- Write down the problem: slow reviews, onboarding to a large codebase, boilerplate or test coverage. Different problems point to different forms.
- List non-negotiables: training opt-out, SSO, audit logs, data residency, editor compatibility.
- Shortlist two or three tools and collect dated facts from official pages.
- Run a two-week pilot with three to five developers on real tickets, using free tiers or trials, with a spend cap.
- Measure review turnaround, tickets closed or developer-reported time saved against the weeks before the pilot.
- Score with the template below, apply exclusions, and decide.
Scoring template
This is a template with suggested weights, not a measured ranking. Adjust the weights to your situation and score each tool from 0 to 5.
| Criterion | Suggested weight | What to check |
|---|---|---|
| Fit to the problem | 25% | Does the form address your bottleneck? |
| Privacy and admin controls | 20% | Documented training opt-out, SSO, audit logs, policy enforcement for your tier |
| Cost at realistic usage | 20% | Team-tier price plus heavy agent days under the usage model |
| Developer experience in the pilot | 15% | Would the pilot group keep using it? |
| Compatibility | 10% | Editors, languages, git hosts, CI, extensions |
| Exit cost | 10% | How hard is it to switch off or switch tools? |
Any failed non-negotiable excludes a tool regardless of score.
When a free tier is enough
A free tier can be enough for a solo developer or hobby project: Copilot Free lists 2,000 completions per month, Cursor Free lists limited usage, and CodeRabbit reviews public repositories free. It is rarely enough for a team, because SSO, policy enforcement and audit logs are documented only on paid organisation tiers across all four products. Use the free tier for the pilot and budget the team tier for the decision; our guide to evaluating free plans covers the method.
Conditional recommendations by team type
- A solo developer or two-person startup: start with a free tier or entry individual plan in the form that matches your editor habits, and watch usage for a month before paying more.
- A small team on GitHub with no appetite for an editor change: evaluate a plugin-style assistant on an organisation plan that documents policy control; add a reviewer if PR throughput is the pain.
- A team willing to standardise on an AI-native editor: pilot one editor on its team tier so privacy settings are inherited by every member, and cost heavy agent days under its allowance rules.
- A team whose bottleneck is review, not writing: evaluate a reviewer first; it adds to whatever assistant developers already use.
- A regulated organisation: make documented training exclusion, SSO, audit logs and, where offered, self-hosting non-negotiable, and expect enterprise tiers.
What to avoid
- Buying individual seats for a team, then discovering policy and audit features live on the organisation tier.
- Budgeting on the headline price without modelling agent usage under the allowance or credit rules.
- Assuming a certification on a vendor's security page covers the free or individual tier.
- Running a pilot without a baseline, so nobody can say whether anything improved.
- Ignoring the rename: Windsurf links now lead to Devin Desktop, so check which product and plan a colleague means.
How we researched this
This guide is research-based. On 24 October 2026 an editor re-read the Cursor pricing and security pages, the GitHub Copilot plans page and plans documentation, the Devin Desktop and Devin pricing pages, and the CodeRabbit pricing page and FAQ, and compared them with SIDAN's catalog entries. The scoring weights are SIDAN's suggestion. No hands-on testing was done. See how we research.
Sources and disclosures
Sources are listed with this article, each with the claim it supports and the date it was checked. SIDAN may earn commissions from some links elsewhere on the site. None of the links in this article are affiliate links, and our recommendations are not influenced by payment.