Claude Code vs GitHub Copilot
Claude Code (Anthropic) and GitHub Copilot (GitHub (Microsoft)) side by side on public data, as of Oct 6, 2026.
GitHub Copilot has 2.9x the VS Code extension installs of Claude Code (78.6M against 27.1M). Claude Code shipped 74 stable releases in the past 90 days.
Side-by-side numbers
| Metric | Claude Code | GitHub Copilot |
|---|---|---|
| Pulse Score | 80 | 70 |
| Overall rank | #3 | #9 |
| Downloads, last 7 days | 14.8M | — |
| Downloads, 7-day change | up 11.6% | — |
| Downloads, 30-day change | down 36.4% | — |
| VS Code installs | 27.1M | 78.6M |
| Marketplace rating | 3.7 / 5 (894) | 2.8 / 5 (395) |
| GitHub stars | 150K | — |
| Homebrew installs, 30 days | 28.3K | — |
| Hacker News mentions, 30 days | 1,350 | 75 |
| Latest stable release | 2.1.290 · yesterday | — |
| Stable releases, 90 days | 74 | |
| Terminal-Bench (best run) | 57.9% · v4.0 | — |
| Price | $20/mo | Free + $10/mo |
| License | Proprietary | Proprietary |
| First released | February 2025 | June 2021 |
| Interfaces | CLI, IDE extension, Desktop, Web, Mobile, SDK | IDE plugin, CLI, Web, Mobile, Desktop app, Slack, GitHub |
| Models | Anthropic Claude models via Claude plans, a Console API key or supported third-party cloud providers | Selectable models from OpenAI, Anthropic and others (Claude Sonnet 5.5 and GPT-6.1 Sol were added in Sept 2026); Pro+ and Max can also delegate tasks to third-party agents such as Claude and OpenAI Codex. |
Trends
Claude Code
Anthropic's agentic coding tool that reads a codebase, edits files and runs commands from the terminal, with VS Code and JetBrains integrations plus desktop, web and mobile access. It runs Claude models through a Claude subscription, an Anthropic Console API key or supported third-party cloud providers.
Pricing: Included in paid Claude plans: Pro $20/month ($17/month billed annually), Max from $100/month (5x and 20x tiers), Team standard seat $20/seat/month annual ($25 monthly) and premium seat $100 annual ($125 monthly). The Free plan does not include it; pay-as-you-go API credits via a Console account are an alternative.
Latest release 2.1.290:
- Added serverToolUses to the result of a mod's turn.step hook: the tool calls the API ran itself (the advisor), each with its id, name, input, start and end
- Added agentId to the tool.check event of plugin hooks, so a hook can tell a subagent's permission check from the main session's
- Added ceiling to the question and verdict a mod's tool.check hook reads, naming the approval an organization requires for a tool
- Added ThemeKey and Color types to the plugin hooks typings, so an editor lists the theme colors a mod's drawing can name
GitHub Copilot
AI coding assistant from GitHub offering completions, chat and agent mode in IDEs, a terminal CLI, a desktop app and a cloud agent that works on assigned tasks in the background and opens pull requests. Models from several providers can be selected.
Pricing: Free; Pro $10/mo; Pro+ $39/mo; Max $100/mo; Business $19/seat/mo; Enterprise $39/seat/mo; free for verified students. Plans include monthly GitHub AI Credits (Pro 1,500, Pro+ 7,000, Max 20,000 credits) that chat, agent mode, the cloud agent, CLI and code review draw on.