Comparison
GitHub Copilot vs OpenAI Codex
GitHub Copilot: AI assistant that suggests code in real time inside your editor OpenAI Codex: OpenAI's coding agent, included with ChatGPT.
| GitHub Copilot | OpenAI Codex | |
|---|---|---|
| Rating | 4.7 | 4.5 |
| Price | Freemium Free plan (2,000 completions/month). Pro from $10/month. Pro+ $39/month. Max $100/month. Business $19/user/month. Enterprise $39/user/month. | Freemium Limited use on the free ChatGPT plan. Go $8/month, Plus $20/month, Pro $100-200/month, Business $25/user/month. Since April 2026 it bills against token credits. |
| Free plan | ||
| API available | ||
| Open source | ||
| In Spanish | ||
| No watermark | — | — |
| Platforms | Web · Windows · Mac · Linux · Extension | Web · Windows · Mac · Linux · iOS |
GitHub Copilot or OpenAI Codex?
They come from different worlds even though both trace back to OpenAI's ecosystem. Copilot is autocomplete inside the editor, with a free plan and a presence in every major IDE. Codex is an agent that carries out complete tasks and is included with ChatGPT. Plenty of teams end up with both: Copilot day to day and Codex for specific jobs.
Choose GitHub Copilot if…
You want suggestions as you type, in your usual IDE and with a free plan to start.
Choose OpenAI Codex if…
You want to delegate whole tasks, review pull requests automatically, and already pay for ChatGPT.
GitHub Copilot
- Native integration in VS Code, Visual Studio, JetBrains and other popular editors
- Advanced AI models: access to Claude Opus, GPT-5, and specialised or custom models
- Autonomous agents that carry out complex tasks without constant supervision
- The interface and prompts work best in English; quality drops in other languages
- Limited official completions API; there is no public endpoint to integrate into your own apps
OpenAI Codex
- Included in the ChatGPT subscription you already pay for
- Its CLI is open source and accepts your own API key
- Works in the cloud on several tasks at once
- Since April 2026 it bills against token credits: hard to predict
- Real heavy usage runs to $100-200 a month per developer
The differences that actually matter
Completing versus solving
Copilot is mostly continuous suggestion inside the editor. Codex is oriented to taking a complete task and handing it back done. Although both come from the same technological lineage, today they serve different moments in the work and comparing them on code quality misses that.
How each is paid for
Copilot has its own monthly fee, cheap and with established enterprise plans. Codex is included in ChatGPT's paid subscriptions. If your company already has GitHub, Copilot slots in with no administrative friction; if you already pay for ChatGPT, Codex costs you nothing more.
Integration with your workflow
Copilot sits inside the editor and inside GitHub, so it appears where you already review code. Codex works better as a queue of tasks you launch and review later. The choice depends on whether you prefer assistance in place or delivered work.
Frequently asked questions
Do they have the same owner?
Not exactly. Copilot is a GitHub product, and GitHub belongs to Microsoft; Codex is OpenAI's. The two companies have a close relationship and Copilot has historically used OpenAI models, but they are products with different teams, pricing and roadmaps.
Which do I pick if I only want one?
If you code every day inside an editor, Copilot: it is cheap, it is where you work and the autocomplete pays off from the first minute. If you already pay for ChatGPT and what you want is to delegate self-contained tasks, you already have Codex and need add nothing.