GitHub Copilot alternatives worth trying

GitHub Copilot tTruly an excellent code completion tool. However, you still have it GitHub Copilot alternatives with no less quality.

What is GitHub Copilot?

With auto-completion, live suggestions, and in-editor chat, it is one of the most widely used AI development tools in the world. But code review (added to Copilot Business and Enterprise in 2025) tells a different story. It is designed as an add-on to an existing subscription, rather than a dedicated code review product.

That distinction is important: the built-in features are optimized for good enough coverage and easy adoption within the platform you’re already using; Specialized tools optimized for review quality, technical visibility and workflow depth. For teams interested in finding the bugs that actually cause problems, those two goals are not the same.

This article reviews the top six open source alternatives to GitHub Copilot available today, focusing on tools that provide model independence, private key (BYOK) capabilities, and on-the-fly model swapping, along with architectural flexibility and transparent data practices.

GitHub Copilot alternatives worth trying

Cursor

Cursor is the AI-integrated IDE that most developers leaving Copilot choose first. This is an evolved version of VS Code with genuine agent mode (Composer 2), cloud-based agents, and Tab auto-completion that is rated by the community as the best since 2024.

Cursor is an evolved version of VS Code. Tab autocompletion works on the Supermaven model that Cursor acquired in 2024. Composer 2 handles multi-file agent runs, and Cloud Agents creates parallel runs in a remote sandbox environment so you don’t have to use your laptop.

Main features:

• Autocompletion using the Tab key
• Agent mode for multi-file changes
• Cloud agent for parallel runs in remote test environments
• Index source code with @-mentions for easier understanding
• Supports all major models (Claude, GPT-5.5, Gemini, Grok)
• SWE-Bench resolution rate reached 51.7% compared to Copilot’s 56.0%.

Best suited for:

Developers want the familiar interface of VS Code plus a more in-depth agent mode.

Price:

• Hobby Plan (Free): Limit Tab autocompletion and limit the number of agent requests
• Pro plan $20/month: use credits based on consumption (old fast/slow claim hierarchy will be phased out in June 2025)
• Pro+ package $60/month
• Ultra package $200/month

Builder.io

Builder.io is the only app on this list that’s built for the entire team. It’s a collaborative workspace where designers, product managers, and engineers work alongside AI agents in parallel, and where engineers approve every change before deployment. While the rest of this list are programming assistants for single developers, Builder is a multi-user layer built on top of any application you choose.

Personal programming has never been faster. The transition from designer to engineer to QA has never been slower. Cursor and Claude Code help individual developers get faster, but they don’t allow designers to push an actual component change or an updated copy of product management without creating a ticket. Builder.io shortens that transition. Designers, product managers, and engineers contribute in the same workspace; every agent runs in parallel; engineer controls the consolidation.

Main features:

• Multi-user workspace: designers, project managers, engineers and AI agents in the same branch
• Powerful parallel agents: create dozens of runs in cloud containers without competing for your laptop
• Design-to-code workflow: Turn Figma into React, Vue, Svelte, Angular, Qwik, Solid, HTML, React Native, Kotlin or Flutter
• Merge with engineer approval: any agent changes are deployed only after developer approval

Best suited for:

Teams where the bottleneck is team-wide deployment, not the speed of individual developers

Price:

• Free: 5 users, 15 Agent Credits daily / 60 Agent Credits monthly
• Pro: pay as you go ($25 for 500 Agent Credits)
• Teams: $40/user/month
• Business: number of users and custom Agent Credit

Claude Code

Claude Code is Anthropic’s automated programming tool. It runs in the terminal, in VS Code or JetBrains, in a desktop application or on the web, built into Claude.ai Pro or charged per token.

Claude Code was originally designed as a terminal-first tool and has evolved into a cross-platform tool. It still runs as a CLI command (the environment engineers are familiar with), and comes with VS Code and JetBrains extensions, a desktop app, and a web app. The difference is in the form: Claude Code does not interfere with your editor. It acts as an agent that reads files, runs commands, and opens pull requests (PRs), then stops automatically.

Main features:

• Terminal-first command line interface (CLI) with VS Code, JetBrains, Desktop, and Web interfaces
• Supports MCPs, sub-agents, processes, scheduled tasks
• Integrate GitHub Actions for CI-based runs
• Sonnet 4.6 and Opus 4.7 (models that are widely used in most agent performance testing today)
• Direct access to Anthroponic models without vendor markup fees

Best suited for:

• Engineers view AI as a subordinate collaborator in multi-step agents.
• Anyone who has paid for Claude.ai Pro or Max (including Claude Code)

Price:

• Bundled with Claude.ai Pro ($20/month) or Max (from $100/month, with higher pricing available)
• Pay by token: Sonnet 4.6 input $3/MTok, output $15/MTok; Opus 4.7 input $5/MTok, output $25/MTok