Best for: Developers and teams on GitHub who want AI in the IDE they already use, at the lowest entry price
Price: Freemium · from $10/month
Free: Limited chat and agent usage, including the CLI and agent mode
Platforms: Web, iOS, VS Code, JetBrains, Terminal, Desktop app, Other
Made by: GitHub (Microsoft), San Francisco, USA · since 2008

What it is

GitHub Copilot covers code completion, chat, agent mode in the major IDEs, Copilot CLI, a desktop app and a cloud agent you can assign issues to. Since June 2026 every plan is billed with usage-based GitHub AI Credits.

Latest: On 1 June 2026 all Copilot plans moved to usage-based billing with GitHub AI Credits.

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)

Pros and cons

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

How it scores

Code quality7.5

Ease of use9

Features9

Value for money8.5

Platforms10

Leads on integration and value; reviewers say its agent and multi-file output lags the leaders.

Feature checklist · 8 of 9

Autonomous agent mode that edits multiple files (yes)
Inline code completion as you type (yes)
Choice of AI models from more than one vendor (yes)
Use your own API keys, local models or self-hosted deployment (no)
Extension for existing IDEs (VS Code or JetBrains) (yes)
Command-line (terminal) agent (yes)
Cloud agents that keep working in the background (yes)
AI code review for pull requests (yes)
Connects to external tools (MCP, plugins or apps like Slack and Jira) (yes)

How we score apps →

Alternatives

See all GitHub Copilot alternatives, ranked →

OpenAI Codex 8.7/10Developers who want parallel, asynchronous tasks and pull requests back, bundled with ChatGPT
Claude Code 8.5/10Engineers who hand off large multi-file tasks and long autonomous runs
Cursor 8.3/10IDE-first developers who want AI in every keystroke and the freedom to switch models
Amp 7.7/10Experienced developers and teams running many parallel, long-running agents