GitHub Copilot
AI pair programmer integrated directly into your IDE
GitHub Copilot is the original AI coding assistant, providing real-time code suggestions in VS Code, JetBrains, and Neovim. Copilot Workspace now offers full-repo agent capabilities for planning and implementing changes.
Editor rating is our overall editorial judgment of the tool, out of 5. It is not a test score and not a user-review average. Ratings have not been re-scored since the tool was listed here. The reasons are in Best for and Pros & cons below.
You can use this without coding, but there is some setup before it is useful.
Best for
Pros & cons
✓ Pros
✗ What this won't do
Use cases
Writing boilerplate code faster
Auto-generating unit tests
Code review assistance
Learning unfamiliar APIs
Open a file on GitHub
Copilot is built into GitHub, so there is nothing to install. Sign in to GitHub and open any file in a repository.
Ask Copilot a question
Click the Copilot icon at the top right of the file view. Type "Explain what this file does." and press Enter.
Read the answer
Copilot replies in the chat panel. Ask about any part that is still unclear.
Know what needs a paid plan
Handing Copilot a whole coding task, called the cloud agent, needs a paid plan such as Copilot Pro. Without one, you can still use Copilot inside your code editor.
Compare alternatives
| Tool | Category | Editor rating | Pricing |
|---|---|---|---|
| GitHub Copilot (current) | Coding | 4.7 | Free for OSS / $10 mo |
| Cursor | Coding | 4.9 | Free / $20 mo |
| Devin Desktop (formerly Windsurf) | Coding | 4.6 | Free / $15 mo |
| Replit | Coding | 4.5 | Free / $20 mo |