GitHub Makes AI Coding Accessible to All with Free Copilot

Microsoft-owned platform GitHub has launched a free version of its AI-powered coding assistant, GitHub Copilot (AI-powered code completion tool).

Key Points

GitHub Copilot free version will ship by default with Microsoft’s popular Visual Studio Code (VS Code) editor, making it more accessible to developers worldwide.

GitHub’s free version of Copilot offers a measured but comprehensive package designed for occasional users with a monthly allowance of 2,000 code completions, users can receive AI-generated suggestions regardless of whether they implement them.

The access is restricted to Anthropic’s Claude 3.5 Sonnet and OpenAI’s GPT-4o, while paid plans also include models such as Google’s Gemini 1.5 Pro andAI’s o1-preview and -mini.

Chat functionality is capped at 50 messages per month, users still enjoy complete access to all Copilot extensions and skills, making it suitable for smaller development projects.

This free offering maintains versatility across multiple development environments, supporting VS Code, Visual Studio, JetBrains, and GitHub.com platforms.

Background

The announcement of the free version of GitHub Copilot follows their initiative to provide students, educators, and open-source maintain with free access to the more feature-rich Copilot Pro.

The free tier of GitHub Copilot also includes multi-file editing, terminal assistance, custom instructions, voice commands and project context awareness.

In addition to these offerings, GitHub is previewing an advanced feature called Visionilot, which allows developers to create UIs from screenshots, thereby simplifying the design-to-code workflow.

News Gist

GitHub has launched a free version of its AI-powered coding assistant, Copilot.

This free tier, available in VS Code, offers a limited number of code completions and chat messages.

While restricted, it provides developers with access to Copilot’s AI capabilities, making this powerful tool more accessible to a wider audience.