Comment by Lramseyer

Being tied to the code editor is the entire point, otherwise I would have just used GTKwave. Integrating it into the code editor - specifically VScode allows me to support terminal links (instance paths and timestamps from sim logs), first class remote SSH support (instead of having to use a laggy VNC session), and design hierarchy to RTL. Though you need a separate extension for that, because the waveform viewer is language agnostic and simulator agnostic by design. If you have ever used Verdi, it does design hierarchy to RTL, and I wanted to make a modern and open source version of that.

Surfer is fantastic, and the developers of Surfer are pretty great people too! It has been on my to-do list to learn Spade.