Last updated: May 2026
Yes. GitHub Copilot has a free tier that includes 2,000 code completions and 50 premium requests per month. It is enough to evaluate the tool but not enough for full-time development — most active developers exhaust the limit within a week. Verified students, teachers, and maintainers of popular open-source projects get free access to Copilot Pro via GitHub Education.
| Plan | Price | Who it's for |
|---|---|---|
| Free | $0/month | Evaluation, light use |
| Pro | $10/month ($100/year) | Individual developers |
| Pro+ | $39/month | Heavy users needing top models |
| Business | $19/user/month | Teams with admin controls |
| Enterprise | $39/user/month | Large orgs with compliance needs |
Note: As of June 1, 2026, GitHub Copilot moves to usage-based billing. Each plan includes AI Credits equal to its subscription price ($10 Pro = $10 in credits/month). Overages are metered at $0.01 per AI credit. Heavy agent mode users can exhaust Pro's credits within a workweek. New signups for Pro and Pro+ were temporarily paused in April 2026 while GitHub rolls out the new billing system.
Pro ($10/month) includes unlimited completions, access to Sonnet 4.6 and Gemini models, 300 premium requests/month, agent mode, and the Copilot Coding Agent. Pro+ ($39/month) adds Claude Opus 4.7 access, 5× more premium requests than Pro, and priority access to new models and features. Most individual developers are well-served by Pro. Pro+ makes sense only if you run agent mode continuously throughout the workday.
Yes. GitHub Copilot works in VS Code, Visual Studio, all JetBrains IDEs (IntelliJ, PyCharm, WebStorm, GoLand, etc.), Neovim, and Xcode. This is a meaningful advantage over Cursor and Windsurf, which are VS Code forks and only run in their own editors.
Agent mode lets Copilot autonomously edit multiple files, run terminal commands, and iterate on its own output within your IDE — similar to Cursor's Composer or Cline. It is available on Pro, Pro+, Business, and Enterprise plans. The Copilot Coding Agent goes further: it runs asynchronously in the cloud, takes a GitHub issue, and opens a pull request while you work on something else. See the GitHub Copilot Coding Agent guide for a full breakdown.
No, not on paid plans. Copilot Pro, Business, and Enterprise do not use your code to train models. The Free plan's data handling differs — check GitHub's privacy policy for the current terms. Business and Enterprise add explicit organizational privacy controls and audit logs.
Copilot Pro at $10/month costs half of Cursor Pro at $20/month. Cursor offers deeper multi-file editing via Composer and more flexible model selection per request. Copilot integrates more deeply with the GitHub ecosystem — issues, PRs, and the Copilot Coding Agent all live natively in GitHub. For teams, Copilot Business at $19/user is significantly cheaper than Cursor Teams at $40/user. See Cursor vs GitHub Copilot for a full comparison.
No. GitHub Copilot requires an internet connection to send code to the model and receive completions. There is no local model option.
Use copilot-instructions.md in your .github/ directory to give Copilot persistent project context — coding standards, architecture notes, and workflow rules. See the GitHub Copilot Rules guide for a complete configuration reference, and AI coding best practices for GitHub Copilot for workflow tips.
For developers who already live in the GitHub ecosystem — managing issues, reviewing PRs, and running CI there — Copilot Pro at $10/month is the most natural and cost-effective choice. For developers who want the most powerful in-editor agent experience, Cursor or Claude Code may deliver more. For teams, Copilot Business at $19/user is hard to beat on price.