What is GitHub Copilot?
GitHub Copilot is GitHub's (Microsoft) AI programming assistant, integrated directly into the most popular code editors: it suggests lines of code, whole functions, and even explanations of existing code as you write, learning from the context of the open project.
It was one of the first tools to bring AI-based code completion into the mainstream, and has since evolved into a real conversational assistant (Copilot Chat) able to discuss architecture, find bugs and even open pull requests autonomously on well-defined tasks.
Main Features
- Real-time code completion: suggests lines or blocks as you type
- Copilot Chat: contextual conversation about the open project's code, directly in the editor
- Existing code explanation: describes what a complex function or file does
- Test generation: writes unit tests based on existing code
- Copilot Workspace: plans and executes multi-file changes from a natural language instruction
- Multi-IDE integration: works in VS Code, JetBrains, Neovim and directly on github.com
How Does GitHub Copilot Work?
Once the extension is installed in the editor, Copilot analyzes the code already written in the file and project to propose completions consistent with existing style and conventions, not generic ones. Suggestions appear in real time and are accepted with one keystroke.
With Copilot Chat you can instead ask direct questions about the code ("why does this function error out?", "how would you optimize this loop?") and get answers that account for the real context of the open project, not just generic programming knowledge.
Who is GitHub Copilot for?
- Professional developers wanting to speed up writing repetitive code
- Students and those learning to code, as support for understanding existing code
- Teams wanting to standardize unit test quality
- Companies already using GitHub as their main development platform
- Those working across multiple languages who want a context-aware assistant
Use Cases
- Automatically completing repetitive functions following the project's style
- Quickly understanding what an undocumented legacy code file does
- Generating unit tests for existing code still lacking coverage
- Planning multi-file changes starting from a text description
- Doing conversational debugging directly inside the editor
Pricing
There's a free plan with around 2,000 completions per month, useful for light use. The Pro plan costs $10/month, Pro+ $39/month with access to more advanced models, and the Business plan $19/user/month for companies, with AI credits calculated per token after the June 2026 repricing.
Pros and Cons
Pros:
- Very deep integration with the GitHub ecosystem already used by millions of developers
- Genuine free plan, not just a time-limited trial
- Copilot Workspace useful for coordinated changes across multiple files
Cons:
- The new token-based credit system makes costs less immediately predictable
- The most advanced features remain in the Pro+ and Business plans
- Available context can be limiting on very large codebases
Final Verdict
GitHub Copilot remains one of the most mature and widely used coding assistants, with a free plan that makes it accessible to anyone wanting to try it. For those already working in the GitHub ecosystem, the native integration is hard to match against competing tools.