GitHub Copilot

What it does

GitHub Copilot is GitHub's AI assistant for software development. In the editor it offers code completions and next-edit suggestions, a chat, and an agent mode that can carry out multi-step changes. GitHub lists support for Visual Studio Code, Visual Studio, JetBrains IDEs, Xcode, Vim, Neovim, Zed and Eclipse. Copilot also works on GitHub.com with repositories, issues and pull requests, in the terminal through the Copilot CLI, and in a desktop app for Apple Silicon Macs; sessions can be checked from GitHub Mobile. A cloud agent can take on a task and open a pull request, and Copilot code review can comment on local diffs or pull requests. The plans page lists models from several providers, including Anthropic, OpenAI, Google, xAI and Microsoft.

Pricing and plans

Usage of chat and agents is measured in GitHub AI credits, each worth $0.01. The Free plan includes 2,000 inline suggestions per month and limited chat and agent usage with entry-level models. Pro costs $10 per month and adds unlimited completions, code review, cloud agent tasks and a monthly credit allowance (with an extra "flex" amount) plus the option to buy more credits. Pro+ costs $39 per month with a larger allowance and the ability to delegate tasks to third-party coding agents (in preview). Max costs $100 per month with the largest allowance. The plans page shows monthly prices only; taxes and regional pricing may apply.

Strengths and limits

Copilot's main advantage is its integration with GitHub itself (issues, pull requests, reviews) and the wide range of supported editors. The credit system means heavy chat or agent use can exhaust the monthly allowance, and the Free plan has no flex allotment or extra purchases. According to the plans page, these individual plans exclude enterprise security features, IP indemnity, usage metrics, SAML SSO and pooled organisation-wide usage, which are needed by many companies. Generated code still needs human review and testing.