GitHub Copilot

What is GitHub Copilot?

GitHub Copilot is the AI coding assistant from Microsoft (owner of GitHub) and OpenAI. It was one of the first major AI coding tools to achieve mainstream adoption and is now used by millions of developers. Copilot integrates into the most popular development environments — VS Code, JetBrains, Vim, Neovim — and offers real-time code completions, chat features and agentic capabilities.

How does Copilot work?

GitHub Copilot is primarily trained on public code from GitHub — billions of lines of open-source code in virtually every programming language. When a developer types, Copilot analyzes the context (current file, open files, comments, function names) and suggests code completions — from a single line to entire functions or classes.

Copilot Chat (available in VS Code and as a web interface) provides a conversational interface for asking questions, explaining code, generating tests and debugging. Copilot Workspace (newer) provides agentic features where multi-step tasks are performed based on a description.

Core features

• Inline code completion — real-time suggestions while typing
• Copilot Chat — conversational AI in the editor
• Copilot Workspace — agentic task execution for entire features
• Multi-IDE — VS Code, JetBrains, Vim, GitHub.com
• PR summaries — automatic descriptions of pull requests
• Code review — AI feedback on submitted code

Advantages

• Deepest integration with the GitHub ecosystem
• Broad language support (Python, JS, TypeScript, Go, Ruby, Java, C#, C++ and more)
• Free for students and open-source developers
• Good enterprise features including privacy controls

Disadvantages

• Training data controversies: trained on code without explicit consent from authors
• Slightly less codebase-aware than Cursor
• Enterprise features require more expensive subscription

Pricing

Copilot Individual costs €10/month or €100/year. Copilot Business costs €19/user/month. Free for students and open-source maintainers.

Who is it for?

GitHub Copilot is ideal for developers already deeply embedded in the GitHub ecosystem, for companies wanting enterprise-grade AI coding tools, and for anyone looking for a broadly supported, proven AI coding assistant.