Tool Watch 2025

Goal: Unbiased reviews of new IDEs, extensions, and frameworks.

Current Landscape (Q1 2025)

1. Cursor (The Editor)

  • Verdict: Essential.
  • Why: It is currently the only editor where the AI feels "Native" rather than a plugin. The "Composer" feature (multi-file editing) is the only way to effectively refactor large components.
  • Cons: It's a fork of VS Code, so it lags slightly behind official VS Code updates.

2. Claude Code (The CLI)

  • Verdict: Strong Recommend for Seniors.
  • Why: It is perfect for "Janitorial" work (tests, linting, upgrades). It allows you to parallelize your work (Agent fixes tests while you write new features).
  • Cons: Can be expensive if you let it loop too long.

3. V0 (The UI Builder)

  • Verdict: Niche but Powerful.
  • Why: For starting a project, V0 is unbeatable. It generates production-grade Tailwind/Radix code.
  • Cons: Once the project is complex, copying/pasting from V0 back to your repo becomes tedious. Better for "Greenfield" starts.

4. Windsurf (The Contender)

  • Verdict: Watch closely.
  • Why: Their context indexing is deeper than Cursor's. It understands "Project Flow" better. If Cursor is "Fast", Windsurf is "Deep".
  • Cons: UI is slightly less polished than Cursor.

Framework Watch

  • LangChain: Trending Down. Too much abstraction. Hard to debug.
  • LangGraph: Trending Up. Explicit state machines are better than "Chains".
  • Vercel AI SDK: The Standard. If you are building with Next.js, just use this. It is lightweight and follows standard web patterns.

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