What is GitHub Copilot?
GitHub Copilot, powered by OpenAI's Codex and GPT-4, has become the default AI tool for professional developers. It integrates directly into VS Code, Visual Studio, JetBrains IDEs, and Neovim. The chat feature lets you ask questions about your codebase, explain code snippets, and generate unit tests. Copilot Business ($19/user/month) adds organisation management and privacy protections. A free tier launched in 2024 giving individual developers 2,000 code completions and 50 chat messages per month. For students and open-source maintainers, Copilot is free through GitHub Education and the Open Source program.
Pros & Cons
What works well
- Native IDE integration — no context switching
- Understands your whole codebase for suggestions
- Excellent at boilerplate and repetitive code
- Free for students via GitHub Education
- Copilot Chat for inline code explanations
Things to know
- Can suggest outdated or insecure code patterns
- Less capable than Cursor for complex refactoring
- Best results require good inline comments
What people use GitHub Copilot for
- Auto-completing functions and classes
- Generating unit tests from existing code
- Explaining unfamiliar codebases
- Fixing lint and compile errors
- Writing documentation comments
Pricing
FreemiumStarting at: Free
Free tier: 2,000 completions/month. Pro $10/month. Business $19/user/month. Free for students.
See current pricing