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GitHub Copilot vs Cursor
GitHub Copilot scores higher overall (8.6 vs 8.3), but the right pick depends on what you need.
Choose GitHub Copilot if…
Developers and teams on GitHub who want AI in the IDE they already use, at the lowest entry price
8.6/10★★★★★Full review →Choose Cursor if…
IDE-first developers who want AI in every keystroke and the freedom to switch models
8.3/10★★★★★Full review →Side by side
| GitHub Copilot | Cursor | |
|---|---|---|
| Overall score | 8.6/10 | 8.3/10 |
| Rank in category | #2 of 13 | #4 of 13 |
| Price | Freemium · from $10/month | Freemium · from $20/month |
| Free version | Limited chat and agent usage, including the CLI and agent mode | Hobby: free with limited agent requests |
| Platforms | Web, iOS, VS Code, JetBrains, Terminal, Desktop app, Other | Desktop app, Terminal, Web |
| Made by | GitHub (Microsoft) | Anysphere (SpaceX) |
| Code quality | 7.5 | 8.5 |
| Ease of use | 9 | 9 |
| Features | 9 | 8.5 |
| Value for money | 8.5 | 7.5 |
| Platforms | 10 | 7.5 |
GitHub Copilot: what the AI does
- Inline code completion
- Agent mode in VS Code, Visual Studio, JetBrains, Eclipse and Xcode
- Cloud agent that turns issues into pull requests
- Pull request code review
- Copilot CLI and MCP support
- Delegation to Claude and Codex agents (Pro+/Max)
- Widest IDE coverage of any tool here
- Lowest paid entry price ($10/month)
- Built into GitHub issues, pull requests and code review
- Can use several vendors' models and agents
- Usage-based AI Credits make monthly costs harder to predict
- Reviewers say its multi-file agent work trails Cursor and Claude Code
- Free tier is small
Cursor: what the AI does
- Agent mode with multi-file edits
- Tab completion and inline edits
- Cloud agents and automations
- Cursor CLI
- Bugbot AI code review
- Choice of models (Claude, GPT, Gemini, Grok, Composer)
- Polished AI-first editor experience
- Choice of frontier models
- Strong review and cloud-agent tooling
- VS Code extensions and keybindings carry over
- Usage-based billing makes heavy agent use unpredictable
- Its own Composer model scores far below the frontier models on Cursor's benchmark
- New SpaceX ownership raises questions about model neutrality