{"affiliate_disclosure":"The Lab Report is supported by affiliate commissions. If you buy a tool after clicking a link on this site, we may earn a commission at no extra cost to you. Rankings and scores are never for sale: vendors cannot pay for better placement or better scores, and our verdicts are written before any commercial discussion. Commission income never influences what we test or what we recommend.","data_endpoints":["data/reports.json"],"description":"An independent lab that buys and tests AI/dev tools with its own money and publishes evidence-backed verdicts for developers, indie hackers, and startup operators. Short, honest, no hype. No sponsored listicles.","methodology_summary":"We buy the plan a real user would buy, use it for realistic tasks, and score it on a fixed six-criterion rubric out of 100: code quality (25), agentic coding (20), codebase understanding (15), speed and reliability (10), value for money (15), privacy and data controls (15). Verdicts are written before any commercial discussion with vendors. Anything not personally run is labeled 'based on public documentation and pricing as of October 1, 2026'. We never invent benchmark numbers or quotes.","name":"The Lab Report","reports":[{"best_for":"Daily drivers who want a fast IDE with real model choice.","name":"Cursor","score":80,"slug":"cursor","tested":"2026-10","url":"reports/cursor.html","verdict":"The sharpest everyday coding editor, if you can live with the credit pool."},{"best_for":"Delegating multi-file builds to an agent with automatic codebase context.","name":"Windsurf","score":79,"slug":"windsurf","tested":"2026-10","url":"reports/windsurf.html","verdict":"The most autonomous agent of the three, with quota billing you need to understand first."},{"best_for":"Budget teams and GitHub workflows, where completions are unlimited.","name":"GitHub Copilot","score":74,"slug":"github-copilot","tested":"2026-10","url":"reports/github-copilot.html","verdict":"The cheapest full-featured assistant, and the only one GitHub-native teams should start with."}],"tagline":"Every AI tool, lab-tested.","updated":"2026-10-01","version":"1.0.0"}