GitHub’s AI coding assistant for popular IDEs, the terminal and GitHub.com, with agent mode, a cloud agent that opens pull requests, and code review.
- Works in more IDEs than most rivals, including Xcode, Vim, Neovim, Zed and Eclipse
- Cloud agent turns an assigned task into a ready-to-review pull request on GitHub
- Free plan includes agent mode, MCP support and 2,000 completions per month
- Low entry price for Pro compared with other agent-capable tools
- Credit-based billing makes monthly costs harder to predict for heavy agent use
- Deepest workflow benefits assume your repositories are hosted on GitHub
- Free users cannot pick models manually; selection is automatic
Built by GitHub, the Microsoft-owned code hosting platform, GitHub Copilot is an AI pair programmer that works inside editors, the terminal and GitHub.com. It started as an autocomplete tool and now covers chat, agent workflows and automated pull request review, with usage on every plan measured in GitHub AI Credits.
Copilot plugs into VS Code, Visual Studio, JetBrains IDEs, Xcode, Vim, Neovim, Zed and Eclipse, so most teams can adopt it without switching editors. Agent mode and Model Context Protocol support are available on all plans, including Free. Paid plans add the Copilot cloud agent, which takes an assigned task and returns a pull request, plus Copilot code review for local changes and PRs. Developers also get Copilot CLI for terminal work and a desktop app for macOS. Models from Anthropic, OpenAI and other providers are available, with automatic selection by default, bring-your-own cloud models and local models through Ollama or Foundry Local.
Copilot makes the most sense for developers and organizations whose code already lives on GitHub, since issues, pull requests and reviews connect directly to the assistant. The Free plan includes 2,000 completions a month and limited chat, enough for a real evaluation, while Business and Enterprise tiers add organization policy controls. Verified students get a free Student plan, and some open source maintainers and teachers qualify for free Pro. The move to credit-based billing means heavy agent users should watch their monthly allowance, because premium models and cloud agent sessions consume it faster than basic completions.
