Codeium Review: Best Free Copilot Alternative?

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Codeium no longer exists as a standalone product name. Cognition AI rebranded it to Devin Desktop on June 2, 2026, after acquiring Windsurf (Codeium’s prior name) for roughly $250 million in December 2025. This review covers the current product under its real name, tested on a live React and Python codebase, and answers whether it still beats GitHub Copilot’s free tier.

What Is Codeium (Now Devin Desktop)?

Codeium is the original name of Devin Desktop, an AI-powered code editor now owned by Cognition AI. Cognition renamed Windsurf to Devin Desktop on June 2, 2026. The product traces back to Codeium, an AI autocomplete extension launched by Exafunction in 2022.

Exafunction started in 2021 as a GPU-optimization company founded by MIT graduates Varun Mohan and Douglas Chen. The founders pivoted the company to AI developer tools in 2022 and renamed it Codeium. Codeium built a free autocomplete plugin for VS Code, JetBrains, and Vim, competing directly against GitHub Copilot on price. In November 2024, the company launched the Windsurf Editor, its first standalone agentic IDE, and renamed the entire company to Windsurf in April 2025. OpenAI attempted to acquire Windsurf for approximately $3 billion in mid-2025; the deal collapsed over Microsoft’s contractual rights to OpenAI’s acquisitions. Google then hired Windsurf’s CEO, co-founder, and roughly 40 senior engineers instead. Cognition AI, the company behind the autonomous coding agent Devin, acquired the remaining Windsurf entity in December 2025 for around $250 million, taking on its IP, brand, 210 employees, and $82 million in annual recurring revenue. Cognition folded the product into the Devin brand on June 2, 2026, calling it Devin Desktop.

Source: official Devin pricing page (devin.ai/pricing, verified July 1, 2026) and Cognition’s public rebrand announcement.

What Are Devin Desktop’s Key Features?

Devin Desktop centers on Devin Local, an in-editor coding agent, plus a multi-agent management layer called the Agent Command Center. The tool retains the VS Code fork architecture that Windsurf used and adds orchestration features no prior version had.

• Run Devin Local, a Rust-built coding agent that replaced the older Cascade agent and processes tasks with up to 30% fewer tokens, according to Cognition’s June 2026 release notes.
• Manage multiple agents from the Agent Command Center, a Kanban board that sorts sessions into Running, Waiting for Review, and Done columns.
• Connect external agents through Agent Client Protocol (ACP), an open-source Apache 2.0 standard that runs Codex, Claude Agent, Gemini CLI, and OpenCode inside the same editor window.
• Group related work in Spaces, which bundle sessions, pull requests, files, and Git worktrees so multiple agents share the same context.
• Refactor across hundreds of files in one pass by describing the pattern change once; the agent applies it project-wide instead of running manual find-and-replace.
• Complete code with unlimited Tab completions and inline edits on every plan, including the free tier, using fill-in-the-middle suggestions with terminal-context awareness.
• Preview web apps directly inside the editor and deploy beta builds to Netlify without leaving the IDE.
• Index the full codebase automatically so the agent retrieves relevant files without the developer manually attaching context, a workflow Windsurf originally branded as Cascade’s automatic context retrieval.

Cascade, the agent that carried Windsurf’s reputation for two years, remained available only through July 1, 2026, and has since been fully replaced by Devin Local.

How Much Does Devin Desktop Cost?

Devin Desktop costs $0 for the Free plan, $20/month for Pro, $200/month for Max, and $80/month plus $40 per additional seat for Teams, according to the official pricing page verified July 1, 2026.

Pro pricing rose from $15/month to $20/month during the March 2026 shift from a credit system to a daily/weekly usage-allowance model, then held at $20/month through the June 2026 Devin Desktop rebrand. This puts Pro at exact price parity with Cursor Pro, eliminating the price advantage the Codeium and early Windsurf era relied on. The company does not publish an exact quota number for Pro or Max; usage depends on model choice, task complexity, and session length. Overages beyond the included allowance bill at standard API rates. A 50%+ student discount applies to Pro with a verified .edu email.

What Are the Pros and Cons of Devin Desktop?

The free tier remains genuinely usable for daily coding, but repeated rebrands and an unpublished usage quota introduce real platform risk for anyone planning to rely on it long-term.

Pros:

• The free plan includes unlimited Tab completions and inline edits, not a time-limited trial.
• Devin Desktop ranked #1 in the LogRocket AI Dev Tool Power Rankings as of February 2026, ahead of Cursor and GitHub Copilot.
• ACP support lets developers run Claude Agent, Codex, or Gemini CLI inside the same editor instead of switching tools.
• Codeium’s original no-training-on-private-code default carried over, giving it a privacy edge over some competitors that train on user code by default.
• JetBrains plugin availability gives teams on mixed IDEs a path Cursor does not offer.

Cons:

• The product has changed names twice in 14 months (Codeium → Windsurf → Devin Desktop), each time disrupting extension logins and OAuth flows; a documented GitHub issue (Exafunction/codeium #336) shows the VS Code extension login loop broke immediately after the June 2026 rebrand.
• Neither Pro nor Max publishes a specific usage quota, making monthly cost unpredictable for heavy users.
• Pro pricing increased 33%, from $15/month to $20/month, removing the price advantage over Cursor Pro.
• VS Code extension quality has degraded since the push toward the standalone editor, according to user reports on independent review sites, with slower suggestions and weaker context accuracy than the original Codeium extension delivered.
• The product’s roadmap now serves Cognition’s autonomous-agent strategy for Devin, not standalone assistant users, which may shift priorities away from lightweight individual use cases over time.

How Does Devin Desktop Compare to GitHub Copilot?

Devin Desktop and GitHub Copilot solve different problems: Copilot stays inside your existing editor as an autocomplete and chat layer, while Devin Desktop is a full editor built around autonomous multi-file agent execution.

Copilot Pro costs half of Devin Desktop Pro and requires no editor switch, which matters for developers already comfortable in their current IDE. Devin Desktop’s advantage shows up in multi-file refactoring and agent orchestration through the Agent Command Center, a capability Copilot does not replicate in the same way. For a full head-to-head on agentic depth versus editor familiarity, see our Cursor vs GitHub Copilot comparison.

Who Should Use Devin Desktop?

Solo developers who want a genuinely free daily-driver assistant, and small teams running agent-heavy multi-file refactors, get the most value from Devin Desktop.

• Freelance developers on a $0 budget who need reliable autocomplete without a credit card, since the free tier includes unlimited Tab completions.
• Small teams mixing VS Code and JetBrains who need one AI layer across both IDEs instead of standardizing on a single editor.
• Developers running multiple AI agents in parallel through ACP, since Devin Desktop is one of the few editors that hosts Claude Agent, Codex, and Gemini CLI side by side.
• Bootcamp graduates and students who qualify for the 50%+ .edu discount on Pro before committing to a full-price subscription.

Developers who prioritize pricing stability over new features should treat the frequent rebrands and unpublished quotas as a real cost of adoption, not a footnote.

What Are the Best Alternatives to Devin Desktop?

GitHub Copilot, Cursor, and Claude Code are the three most direct alternatives to Devin Desktop, each targeting a different segment of the same market.

• GitHub Copilot costs $10/month for Pro and stays inside any existing IDE, making it the simplest switch for developers who don’t want to change editors. Read our full GitHub Copilot review.
• Cursor now matches Devin Desktop’s $20/month Pro price and offers a broader feature set, including Background Agents and BugBot, built on the same VS Code-fork approach. See our Cursor vs Devin Desktop comparison.
• Claude Code operates entirely from the command line with no editor UI, giving developers a pure autonomous-agent workflow that complements, rather than replaces, an in-editor tool like Devin Desktop.

Frequently Asked Questions

Is Codeium still available to download?

No. Codeium’s extension and editor now operate under the Devin Desktop name. Existing Codeium and Windsurf accounts migrated automatically, with plans, settings, and extensions preserved.

Is Devin Desktop free?

Yes. The free plan includes unlimited Tab completions and inline edits plus a light agentic usage quota, with restricted frontier model access compared to paid tiers.

Why did Codeium change its name twice?

Codeium renamed itself Windsurf in April 2025 to reflect its shift from an autocomplete extension to a full agentic IDE. Cognition AI acquired Windsurf in December 2025 and renamed it Devin Desktop in June 2026 to position it as the management hub for Devin’s autonomous agents.

Does Devin Desktop work with VS Code and JetBrains?

Yes. Devin Desktop ships as a standalone editor and also maintains a VS Code extension (codeium.codeium) and a JetBrains plugin, though users have reported degraded extension performance since the 2026 rebrand.

Devin Desktop’s free tier remains one of the most usable no-cost AI coding assistants available in 2026, but its Pro plan now costs the same $20/month as Cursor Pro, erasing the price gap that originally made Codeium the budget pick over GitHub Copilot.

For more context on how this tool stacks up against the full market, see our pillar guide, Best AI Coding Tools in 2026.