Windsurf says Anthropic is limiting its direct access to Claude AI models

Windsurf, the favored vibe coding startup that’s reportedly being acquired by OpenAI, says 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 post on X Tuesday that Anthropic gave Windsurf little discover for this modification, and the startup now has to seek out different third-party compute suppliers to run a number of of Anthropic’s hottest AI fashions on its platform.

“We have now been very clear to Anthropic that this isn’t our need – we wished to pay them for the complete capability,” stated Mohan on X. “We’re disenchanted by this choice and brief discover.”

In a blog post, Windsurf stated it has some capability with third-party inference suppliers, however not sufficient, so this modification might create short-term availability points for Windsurf customers attempting to entry Claude.

The choice comes only a few weeks after Anthropic appeared to move over Windsurf throughout the launch of Claude 4, the corporate’s new household of fashions, which supply trade 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 pressured the corporate to depend on a workaround that’s dearer and sophisticated for builders to entry Claude 4. In the meantime, different fashionable 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 latest months. OpenAI reportedly closed on a deal to acquire 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 enable 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 attainable to entry Claude 4 on Windsurf by way of an API key. “Builders may entry Claude by our direct API integration, our associate ecosystem, and different improvement instruments.”

Windsurf has grown rapidly this yr, reaching $100 million ARR in April, in an try and meet up with extra fashionable AI coding instruments reminiscent of Cursor and GitHub Copilot. Nevertheless, Windsurf’s restricted entry to Anthropic’s fashions could also be stunting its development.

A number of Windsurf customers who spoke with TechCrunch have been annoyed by the dearth of direct entry to Anthropic’s greatest AI coding fashions.

Ronald Mannak, a startup founder that focuses on Apple’s programming language, Swift, instructed TechCrunch that Claude 4 represented a big bounce in capabilities for his workloads. Whereas Mannak has been a Windsurf buyer since late 2024, he’s switched to utilizing Cursor in latest weeks in order that he can vibe code extra simply with Claude 4.

As a short-term answer to assist Claude 4, Windsurf permits customers to attach their Anthropic API keys to their Windsurf accounts. Nevertheless, builders have famous that this “deliver your personal key” answer is dearer and sophisticated than if Windsurf supplied the fashions itself.

Relating to vibe coders, optionality is the secret. Each few months, OpenAI, Google, and Anthropic launch new AI fashions that appear to outperform the trade on coding duties. Due to that, it advantages vibe coding startups to assist AI fashions from all of the main builders.

Windsurf spokesperson Payal Patel tells TechCrunch by way of 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 more difficult.