GitHub Copilot
AI assistant that suggests code in real time inside your editor
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What is GitHub Copilot?
GitHub Copilot is an AI pair programmer that provides contextual code suggestions in real time inside your preferred IDE. It runs on leading AI models (Claude, GPT-5, Opus) and offers everything from code autocompletion to autonomous agents that can carry out complex tasks. Available for individual developers, teams and enterprises with governance, audit and data privacy controls.
Pros
- 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
- Free plan with 2,000 monthly completions, no credit card required
Cons
- 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
- Advanced features (chat, agents, premium models) require a subscription or extra credits
What GitHub Copilot is like in practice
Where it stands out
Its autocomplete is the cheapest thing on the market at that job and it is where you already work: VS Code, the JetBrains IDEs, Visual Studio, Neovim and GitHub itself. You change nothing about your environment and the suggestion as you type pays off from the first minute, especially on repetitive code.
Where it falls short
Against the agents, it does not reason about the whole project to the same depth: its strength is still the file you are in. For tasks touching several layers it falls short. And like every generator, it proposes dependencies that sometimes do not exist: that invented name is a target for anyone wanting to publish it with malware.
How its pricing works
It runs around $10/month per user, well below the agents, with mature enterprise plans and centralised billing. It is free for students and verified open-source projects. For teams, per-seat pricing is what makes it the default choice in many companies.
Is GitHub Copilot right for you?
Yes, if…
You write code daily and want suggestions as you type without changing editor. It works in VS Code, JetBrains, Neovim and more, and its free plan of 2,000 completions is enough to properly try it.
No, if…
You want to delegate complete tasks across the repository rather than get line-by-line suggestions, or you need a completions API to build into your own product.
Frequently asked questions
Does GitHub Copilot copy code from public repositories?
It does not copy and paste; it generates probabilistically from patterns. In rare cases (<1%), a suggestion may match training code; you can filter this with the 'Duplicated code detection' toggle.
Is my data used to train models?
On individual Free/Pro plans, GitHub may use your interactions to improve models unless you opt out. On Business/Enterprise, they contractually guarantee your data is NOT used.
Which IDEs does GitHub Copilot support?
VS Code, Visual Studio, JetBrains (IntelliJ, PyCharm, etc.), Neovim, Vim, Eclipse IDE and Azure Data Studio. Full chat is only available in VS Code, JetBrains and Visual Studio.
Compare GitHub Copilot head to head
Pricing, features and limits of GitHub Copilot against its direct rivals.
Where GitHub Copilot appears
Rankings where we have picked this tool.