GitHub Copilot

GitHub Copilot is the most widely deployed AI coding assistant in the world — the "pair programmer" that lives inside your existing editor. It autocompletes lines and whole functions as you type, answers questions in chat, explains unfamiliar code, writes tests, and fixes bugs — in VS Code, JetBrains IDEs, Neovim, Visual Studio and on GitHub.com itself.

Copilot's advantage is ecosystem depth: it's woven through GitHub — reviewing pull requests, summarizing issues, and powering coding agents that can take a GitHub issue and open a draft PR. It supports multiple frontier models (OpenAI, Anthropic, Google) selectable in chat.

Pricing (as of mid-2026): a free tier with monthly completion/chat limits; Pro from around $10/month (now with usage-based AI credits — Pro includes a monthly credit allowance, with higher Pro+/Max tiers for heavy agent use); free for verified students, teachers and open-source maintainers. Business and Enterprise plans add management and IP indemnity.

Strengths: works inside whatever editor you already use, unbeatable price for the value, student free access, deep GitHub workflow integration. Weaknesses: less whole-project awareness than Cursor for large multi-file tasks, and the new credit-based billing rewards understanding your usage.

Who it's for: essentially every developer — it's the default first AI coding tool, and the free student access makes it automatic for learners.