Best GitHub Copilot alternatives
6 tools developers use instead of GitHub Copilot, ranked by popularity. 6 offer a free plan and 3 are open source. Updated October 2026.
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Claude Code
Free planAnthropic's agentic coding tool, running in the terminal, IDE, desktop app, and browser, reading your codebase and editing files with explicit approval.
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Open-source VS Code extension that turns the editor into an autonomous coding agent, using your own API key and an approval gate before each action.
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Cursor
Free planAI-first code editor forked from VS Code, with Tab autocomplete, multi-file Agent mode, Composer, and background agents running on Claude, GPT, or Gemini.
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Windsurf
FreeCognition AI's agentic IDE (formerly Codeium), built on VS Code, with the Cascade agent handling codebase-wide reasoning and multi-file edits.
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Open-source AI coding assistant for VS Code and JetBrains, routing between model providers through one config file, with custom context and Agent mode.
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Open-source agentic coding platform with five agent modes, support for 500+ models at no markup, an MCP marketplace, and parallel subagents.