GitHub has launched GitHub Copilot Free, a free version of Copilot that provides limited access to selected features of Copilot and is automatically integrated into VS Code. The free tier is aimed at individual GitHub customers who don't have access to Copilot through an organization or enterprise. The news coincides with GitHub having 150 million developers on GitHub.

Copilot is GitHub's AI-based code helper system. It was originally based on OpenAI's Codex, but recently added multi-model support meaning developers can select from models including Anthropic's Claude 3.5 Sonnet, Google's Gemini 1.5 Pro, and OpenAI's GPT-4o, o1-preview and o1-mini.

The latest announcement about the free version means developers with a personal GitHub account get access to 2,000 code completions and 50 chat messages per month.

Copilot Free offers developers the choice between Anthropic's Claude 3.5 Sonnet or OpenAI's GPT-4o model. Users can ask a coding question, explain existing code, or have it find a bug. It can be used to execute edits across multiple files, and the Copilot team says developers can access Copilot's third-party agents or build their own extensions.

Copilot Free can be used for code completion in Visual Studio Code, Visual Studio, JetBrains IDES, Vim/Neovim, Xcode, and Azure Data Studio, and Copilot Chat works in Visual Studio Code, Visual Studio, JetBrains IDES, and GitHub.com. You can choose to block suggestions matching public code. If you use Copilot Free in VS Code or on GitHub.com and reach the usage limits, you'll receive a notification that includes the reset date for your limits and a link to set up a 30-day free trial of Copilot Pro. After the trial ends, you'll need a paid subscription to keep using Copilot.

If the free tier isn't sufficient, the next level up is Copilot Pro, which costs $10 per month for unlimited access. There's also a Business version for $19 per month that adds team interactions, and a customizable Enterprise version for £39 per month. GitHub says that students, educators, and open source maintainers will continue to get free access to unlimited Copilot Pro accounts, unaffected by the latest announcement.  

More Information

About GitHub Copilot Free 

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