GitHub Copilot

The choice rests on two things: where your code lives and where you work from.

Who it is for. For those whose projects are already on GitHub: suggestions, chat, and a cloud agent are enabled in a couple of clicks and count as one subscription. Even more so for teams: at companies with 10,000+ people, Copilot has 56% usage, more than any competitor (Pragmatic Engineer survey, 02.2026).

Who it is not for. For those working from Russia without preparation: Copilot is under US export restrictions, and even the free plan will not activate. And for those who need their own key or a local model: there are no such options here; this is the realm of open-source Cline and OpenCode.

Starting from scratch? Signing up here is easier than with many others: a free plan and suggestions right in the editor. But to assign tasks to the agent and review the result, start with the vibecoding page — the door is below.

It works — both doors are in section 3. Choose between it and Cursor: the choice is in section 7.

What vibecoding isStarting from scratch: how to set tasks for agents with no coding experience

One tool, four hands: from suggestions at your fingertips to an agent that works while your laptop is closed.

Suggestions. Copilot completes code as you type and suggests the entire next edit. This is the only part without a counter: completions are unlimited on paid plans and spend no credits.

Chat and agent mode. In the editor, ask in plain language: explain, fix, add a test. In agent mode, Copilot finds the needed files itself, runs commands, and shows a finished set of edits with buttons to accept or revert.

Cloud agent. Assign an issue to the @copilot assignee, and the agent works in the GitHub cloud: it edits code in a separate environment, runs tests, and opens a pull request for your review. Tasks run in parallel; one session is limited to 59 minutes (checked 23.08.2026).

Terminal. Copilot CLI is installed with one command from section 3 and is included in every plan, including the free one. Beyond its own modes, Copilot also lets third-party agents into GitHub: Claude Code and Codex connect through the same subscription.

There are two doors: the editor for daily work and github.com for agent tasks.

There is a path from Russia, but it is stricter than usual. The first step is standard: change your Russian IP address to a foreign one, American, Dutch, or any other, before signing in to the account. Copilot's peculiarity is that GitHub also determines the country from payment history, so a foreign address may not be enough for an account with traces of Russia. The most reliable combination is “a clean account + a foreign card”: payment is covered in section 5.

Editor. Copilot is already built into VS Code: sign in with a GitHub account, and the free plan activates without a card. Plugins are available for Visual Studio, JetBrains, Eclipse, and Xcode.

Site and phone. On github.com open chat or assign an issue to @copilot: the cloud agent needs no installation at all. GitHub Mobile does the same on your phone.

How to install the terminal version

Step 1. Install the agent with one command:

npm install -g @github/copilot

Step 2. Run the copilot command and sign in with your GitHub account. The CLI works on macOS, Linux, and Windows and is included in every plan, including Free.

Installation command checked 23.08.2026 against docs.github.com (Copilot CLI getting started)

An agent benchmark is always a benchmark of an “agent + model” pair. Copilot has dozens of models in its menu, and there is no official pair in benchmarks: it has no single score.

Scale. More than 20 million people over its lifetime (words of Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella, July 2025). GitHub counted 150 million developers on the platform back in December 2024, so roughly every seventh one has tried Copilot. 4.7 million pay for it, up 75% year over year (Microsoft report, January 2026).

Love and scale diverge. In the Pragmatic Engineer survey (906 respondents, February 2026), 9% named Copilot their “favorite tool,” versus 46% for Claude Code. But at companies with 10,000+ employees, it leads usage at 56%: they love other tools, but work in this one.

You pay for a plan, and credits are counted within it: since 01.06.2026, the whole lineup uses one currency, AI Credits, with one credit equal to one cent.

What spends credits. Chat, agents, code review, and terminal use, based on tokens from the selected model: a heavy model burns through the monthly bundle faster. Completions spend no credits at all.

Free plan. Permanent and no card required: 2,000 completions per month plus limited chat with the agent. Enough to try it, tight for daily work.

Paying from Russia. Russian cards do not work. The usual options are a foreign card or an intermediary with a fee, but Copilot has a peculiarity: the account country is also determined from payment history, so a trace of Russia in billing can block access altogether. For how to arrange foreign payment, see payment guide.

We look at three things: where your code goes, what happens with training on it, and what is visible in the tool itself.

Code goes to the cloud. Suggestions and chat work through GitHub servers, while the cloud agent runs tasks in GitHub Actions. There is no lock-in: the agent's changes arrive as a regular pull request to your repository, so you do not need to retrieve anything separately.

Training on your data is enabled by default. Since 24.04.2026 on Free, Pro, Pro+ and Max plans, conversations with Copilot, including code snippets, are used to train GitHub models unless you turn this off in settings. Business and Enterprise plans are protected by contract: their data is not used for training.

The tool itself is closed. The core and models are not published, and cannot be self-hosted. Editor plugins and the source of the chat extension for VS Code are open. The copilot-cli repository is a distribution showcase with complaint intake, not an open core.

The "github copilot vs" search tail almost always leads to Cursor. Short answer: Copilot adds an agent where the code already lives, while Cursor builds an entire editor around the agent.

Entry price. Both have a free plan, while Copilot Pro is half the price: $10 versus $20. The credit math is the same: heavy models burn through the package faster.

Measurements. Cursor CLI pairs are measured on the leaderboard: the best, with GPT-5.5, holds 62 AA points. Copilot has no measured pair at all; its ceiling is set by the model in the menu. In the Pragmatic Engineer survey, Cursor is liked more often (19% versus 9%), while Copilot is more common in large workplaces: 56% at companies with 10 thousand employees or more.

Who else is nearby. For depth in the terminal, go to Claude Code (best pair: 77,2 AA points); for your own key and open code, go to Cline and OpenCode.

The product is five years old, and it is the elder of the genre: it went from the world's first mass-market code suggestion to a lineup where the agent works in the cloud without a person at the keyboard.