GitHub announced on Wednesday that it will release a free version of its popular Copilot code completion and AI-assisted coding tool, which will be integrated by default into Microsoft's widely used Visual Studio Code (VS Code) editor. Previously, most developers had to pay a monthly subscription fee of at least $10, with only verified students, teachers, and open-source project maintainers able to use it for free.
Additionally, GitHub revealed that the number of developers on its platform has grown to 150 million, up from 100 million at the beginning of 2023.
In an exclusive interview prior to the announcement, GitHub CEO Thomas Dohmke stated that since his first project at GitHub in 2018, which introduced free private repositories in early 2019, the company has rolled out several free services, including free private organizations, GitHub Actions permissions, and Codespaces. Therefore, offering a fully free version of Copilot was a natural progression, extending access beyond just students and open-source project maintainers.
The free version of Copilot is designed for occasional users rather than primary developers of large projects, and thus comes with certain limitations. For example, free users are limited to 2,000 code completions per month, with each code suggestion provided by Copilot counting towards this limit, not just the accepted ones. Additionally, free users are restricted to 50 chat messages when using Copilot Chat. However, they still have access to all Copilot extensions and skills.
Dohmke mentioned that the team determined the threshold between occasional users and professional developers based on Copilot usage data over the past few years.
The free version of Copilot is available for multiple editors, including VS Code, Visual Studio, JetBrains, and the GitHub website.
Since its launch in 2021, Copilot has become the default standard for AI coding tools, but the market is becoming increasingly competitive, with companies and startups like Tabnine, Qodo (formerly Codium), and AWS offering similar services, often with free plans. Therefore, GitHub is leveraging the widespread adoption of VS Code to expand Copilot's reach through a freemium model.
Dohmke also noted that he expects more students to use Copilot now, as although the company has long offered a free version for students, they previously had to go through a verification process.
GitHub's goal is to make one billion people developers, and the introduction of the free version of Copilot is a step towards achieving that goal.
