GitHub Copilot vs Cursor
AI pair programmer — the original AI coding assistant from GitHub/Microsoft
vs. AI-native code editor — VS Code fork with deep AI integration
Pricing tiers
GitHub Copilot
Free
50 agent/chat requests + 2,000 completions/month. Haiku 4.5 + GPT-5-mini. Copilot CLI included.
Free
Pro
$10/user/mo. Unlimited agent + chat with GPT-5-mini, 300 premium requests, unlimited inline completions, Claude + Codex.
$10/mo
Pro+
$39/user/mo. 1,500 premium requests, Claude Opus 4.6, all models, GitHub Spark preview, third-party coding agent delegation.
$39/mo
Business
$19/user/mo (contact sales). Everything in Pro + organization license, audit logs, org policies, SSO.
Custom
Enterprise
$39/user/mo. IP indemnification, organization-wide knowledge bases, pull-request agents, fine-grained controls.
Custom
Cursor
Hobby (Free)
Free. Limited Agent requests + Tab completions. No credit card.
Free
Pro
$20/month. Extended Agent limits, frontier models, MCPs + skills + hooks, cloud agents.
$20/mo
Teams
$40/user/month. Shared chats + commands + rules, centralized billing, RBAC, SAML/OIDC SSO.
$40/mo
Pro+ (Recommended)
$60/month. Everything in Pro + 3x usage on OpenAI, Claude, Gemini.
$60/mo
Ultra
$200/month. 20x usage multiplier + priority access to new features.
$200/mo
Enterprise
Custom. Pooled usage, SCIM, AI code tracking API + audit logs, priority support.
Custom
Free-tier quotas head-to-head
Comparing free on GitHub Copilot vs hobby on Cursor.
| Metric | GitHub Copilot | Cursor |
|---|---|---|
| No overlapping quota metrics for these tiers. | ||
Features
GitHub Copilot · 16 features
- Agent Mode — Multi-step autonomous edits with tool use. In VS Code.
- AI Commit Messages — Auto-generate commit messages from diffs.
- Business Policies — Admin controls: disable chat, public code filter, audit logs.
- Chat with Repos / Docs — @github mentions to reference repos, wikis, docs.
- Copilot Chat — Sidebar chat inside editor with file context + /commands.
- Copilot Code Review — AI reviewer on pull requests. Suggests changes inline.
- Copilot Coding Agent — Background agent that implements issues + opens PRs.
- Copilot in CLI — GitHub CLI + `gh copilot suggest` / `explain`.
- GitHub Spark (Pro+) — No-code-style app builder inside Copilot.
- Inline Completion — Ghost-text suggestions as you type. Tab to accept.
- Knowledge Bases (Enterprise) — Index docs/repos as context for chat.
- PR Summaries + Q&A — AI-generated PR descriptions + Q&A on changes.
- Slash Commands — /explain, /fix, /tests, /docs, /simplify, /review.
- Third-Party Agent Delegation (Pro+) — Delegate tasks to Devin, Jules, Claude Code agents.
- Voice Chat (preview) — Talk to Copilot hands-free.
- Workspace (Preview) — Full-repo task planning + execution.
Cursor · 15 features
- Agent Mode — Autonomous multi-file editing + tool use. Runs terminal commands with confirmati…
- Background Agents — Run agents in the cloud to tackle longer tasks async.
- BugBot (PR reviews) — AI reviewer on GitHub PRs.
- Chat (⌘L) — Conversational chat with codebase context.
- Cmd-K Inline Edit — Highlight code + ⌘K → natural language edit instruction.
- Codebase Indexing — Embedding-based semantic search over your codebase.
- Composer — Multi-file edit sessions with full context.
- .cursorrules / Project Rules — Custom system prompts per project to steer the AI.
- MCP Support — Add Model Context Protocol servers to extend agent capabilities.
- Privacy Mode — Data never used for training; zero-retention routing.
- Skills & Hooks — User-defined skills library + lifecycle hooks.
- Tab (multi-line completion) — Predictive completions including next-edit suggestions.
- Team Shared Context — Share chats, commands, rules across team.
- VS Code Extension Compat — Most VS Code extensions work via the marketplace.
- YOLO Mode — Auto-approve all agent actions (for trusted workflows).
Developer interfaces
| Kind | GitHub Copilot | Cursor |
|---|---|---|
| CLI | GitHub Copilot CLI | Cursor CLI |
| REST | Copilot REST API | — |
| MCP | — | Cursor MCP support |
| OTHER | Copilot Chat (Web), JetBrains Plugin, Neovim Plugin, VS Code Extension, Xcode Extension | Cursor Desktop App, Cursor Rules (.cursorrules), Privacy Mode |
Staxly is an independent catalog of developer platforms. Outbound links to GitHub Copilot and Cursor are plain references to their official websites. Pricing is verified against vendor pages at publication time — reconfirm before buying.
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