GitHub Copilot

GitHub Copilot is the most widely deployed AI coding assistant in the world, used by over 20 million developers. Created by GitHub (Microsoft), it integrates as an extension in your existing IDE — VS Code, Visual Studio, JetBrains, Xcode, Neovim, Eclipse, Zed, and many more.

Unlike Cursor or Windsurf which are standalone IDEs, Copilot adds to your preferred editor without changing your workflow. Inline auto-completion is smooth and contextual, Copilot Chat answers your code questions, and Agent mode lets AI execute tasks autonomously: writing code, creating files, running tests.

In 2025-2026, GitHub significantly enriched the offering with the Copilot Coding Agent — an agent capable of autonomously working on GitHub issues, creating branches, writing code, and opening pull requests. Integration with the GitHub ecosystem is unmatched: automatic code review, PR summaries, and even GitHub Spark for creating micro-apps.

The free plan is particularly generous: 2,000 completions and 50 premium requests per month, no credit card required. Students, teachers, and popular open source maintainers get free access to the Pro plan.

Multi-model support is recent but powerful: Claude Opus 4.6, GPT-5, Gemini, and others are available depending on your plan. Premium requests provide access to the most advanced models.