GitHub Copilot vs Codeium: Complete Comparison Guide
Compare GitHub Copilot and Codeium on AI suggestions, free tier, privacy, and IDE support. Discover which AI code assistant best fits your budget and needs.
GitHub Copilot
The market leader in AI code assistants with 71.1% usage among developers. Copilot offers powerful inline autocomplete via GPT-4o, chat features, and deep GitHub integration. It is a paid tool with a limited free tier for individual developers.
Codeium
A rapidly growing AI code assistant that distinguishes itself with a generous free tier. Codeium offers fast autocomplete, chat, and search features, and is also the creator of the Windsurf AI IDE. It focuses on accessibility and offers privacy options for enterprise customers.
Comparison table
| Feature | GitHub Copilot | Codeium |
|---|---|---|
| Free tier | Limited — capped number of completions and chat messages per month | Generous — unlimited autocomplete for individual developers |
| Pricing (Pro) | Pro $10/month, Business $19/month | Pro in Windsurf $15/month, Teams on request |
| Suggestion quality | Market-leading — powered by GPT-4o | Strong and fast — proprietary models optimized for speed |
| Privacy | Cloud processing, code not used for training on Business tier | Code is not stored or trained on, on-premise option for enterprise |
| IDE support | VS Code, JetBrains, Neovim, Visual Studio, and more | VS Code, JetBrains, Neovim plus own Windsurf IDE |
| Ecosystem | Deeply integrated with GitHub (PRs, Issues, Actions) | Windsurf IDE, codebase indexing, growing ecosystem |
Verdict
GitHub Copilot remains the gold standard for AI code assistance with the best overall suggestion quality and broadest ecosystem. Codeium is the strongest free alternative and offers impressive capabilities at no cost. For professional teams wanting to maximize AI value, Copilot is the safe choice. For developers who want to experience AI code assistance without financial barriers, Codeium is the ideal starting point. With Windsurf, Codeium also offers a full-featured AI IDE as an alternative to Cursor.
Our recommendation
At MG Software, we recommend beginning developers and students start with Codeium thanks to its excellent free tier. It is the best way to experience AI-assisted programming without cost. For professional development teams, we recommend Cursor (which surpasses both standalone Copilot and Codeium). If you want to stay with a traditional IDE, GitHub Copilot Pro is the default choice for our Next.js and TypeScript work.
Frequently asked questions
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