7.8/10: the broadest, most widely-adopted AI coding assistant, with real usage-based billing complexity.
GitHub Copilot is Microsoft's AI coding assistant, built into GitHub and available across more IDEs than any competitor we tested. An independent developer survey found it is the most-used AI coding tool at work today, ahead of ChatGPT, Claude Code, Cursor, and Codex, thanks to a genuinely usable free tier and deep GitHub integration, though its usage-based AI-Credit billing adds real cost complexity.
Install the Copilot extension in VS Code, Visual Studio, JetBrains, or another supported editor and sign in with a GitHub account.
Copilot suggests completions and next edits as you type, using whichever model you have selected.
Use Copilot Chat for questions in context, or hand off a well-scoped task to the autonomous coding agent, which can open a pull request.
Copilot's code-review feature can review a pull request automatically, flagging issues before a human reviewer looks at it.
EDITORIAL NOTEWeighted base 7.85 (capability 9.0·.30 + value 7.5·.20 + ease 8.5·.15 + privacy 5.5·.15 + support 6.0·.10 + ecosystem 9.5·.10), with a bounded −0.05 editorial override settling the rounding at 7.8. The override reflects Copilot's two most material 2026 buyer-facing trade-offs — default training on individual-tier interaction data (opt-out, on by default since Apr 24, 2026) and cost unpredictability under usage-based AI Credits with an unresolved allowance conflict — which are recent, real and not yet reflected in user-review aggregates. Final 7.8 = 'Great' (Tier 2).
AI synthesis of external reviews · not on bestaiq
Synthesized from 6 external reviews. Independent signal (Trustpilot / Reddit / verified aggregators) weighted higher than commission-carrying review sites.
Yes. The Free plan includes 2,000 code completions per month plus limited chat and agent usage, with no credit card required. Paid plans start at $10/month for Pro.
On Free, Pro, and Pro+ individual plans, interaction data is used for training by default (you can opt out). Business and Enterprise plans exclude training by default.
By real-world developer usage, yes. A JetBrains survey of 10,000+ developers found 29% use it for coding at work, the highest of any tool measured, including ChatGPT and Claude Code.
GitHub Copilot has far broader IDE support and the largest real-world adoption; Claude Code has a deeper agentic feature set (subagents, hooks, MCP) and scores slightly higher on several independent benchmarks. Copilot currently scores 7.8/10 in our testing versus Claude Code's 7.9/10.
AI Credits meter chat, agent, and premium-model usage beyond unlimited code completions. Pro includes about $15/month of credits, Pro+ about $70, and Max about $200; heavy users should watch this allowance.
GitHub Copilot earns a 7.8/10 (Great, Tier 2) as the most broadly adopted and IDE-compatible AI coding assistant we tested: a safe, capable default, provided you understand its AI-Credit billing and default training settings.