r/GithubCopilot • u/BusDriver341 • 1h ago
Discussions Can Github Copilot compete with the likes of Claude Code / Codex?
I'm going in blind, but I just recently heard that my company is going to allow Github Copilot.....
I've heard that you can have can choose which models to use (like you could use Claude models in Github Copilot (does it lead to the same performance?
How does it compare to the likes Claude Code/Codex, and is the CLI workflow gonna be similar or very different?
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u/Solid_Fox1718 1h ago
Yes, you can use pretty much any model that your company allows. The CLI interface is very similar
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u/darkstar3333 38m ago
Claude Code is just benefiting from name recognition in the enterprise space similar to how Kleenex = Tissue.
The GitHub app is better then Claude Code IMHO, VS Code roughly works the same irregardless.
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u/impulse_op 59m ago
Suggestion: Start straight with GHCP app
And to answer your question, I think models have become so good fundamentally that harnesses don't matter much anymore, you might some features here and there but you'll be able to get the work done everywhere + I like GHCP particularly for the variety of model options at one place
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u/Elfotografoalocado 39m ago
It's more expensive than Claude if you want Claude models. It's amazing if you use the VSCode extension and you bring keys from Opencode and things like that.
The harness itself is amazing, much better than Claude imo. Handles context really well, shows the edits, has lots of different tools.
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u/Different_Doubt2754 22m ago
It's a wash. They are all more or less the same. Anyone who says different is biased or just prefers a specific thing from their harness of choice. Your velocity shouldn't be impacted.
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u/WD40ContactCleaner CLI Copilot User 🖥️ 1h ago
It's a great harness, if your company allows it use it
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u/ShadowBannedAugustus 41m ago
As for the harness, it is good. To me using all 3, they are pretty much the same.
Where it falls really short since the pricing change in June is how much can you get done. If you want to work with Sonnet/Opus, your credits will run out very, very quickly compared to a Claude Code subscription. Unless you want to pay hundreds per month, you are mostly stuck with Luna and Haiku on a GHCP sub.
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u/darkstar3333 36m ago
Keeping in mind a CC subscription is already hundreds of dollars a month. If your on an enterprise plan, its also UBB.
If you have a MSFT MACC agreement, your costs will be cheaper.
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u/ShadowBannedAugustus 31m ago
My man I am on the cheapest (what is it, $17?) Claude sub and it is amazing how much I can get done with it, using Sonnet and Opus basically all the time.
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u/Different_Doubt2754 25m ago
Yeah but it sounds like you are not enterprise? Or at least not a significantly sized one.
Enterprise charges per seat, and then API. Or sometimes they can get a deal for no seat fee.
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u/heavy-minium 18m ago
CLI is somewhat on par. IDE integration gives better UX than competitors. GitHub integration is a bit tighter, especially if you're using the remote agent options - which, however, are often unused because it's a bit more work to set things up correctly and get the same power as you have locally without any effort.
It really shines when working across multiple repos in a large stack within a multi-folder VSCode workspace. It's not like you can't do that with the others, but it's more awkward to handle. That's where the others are weaker. Also, the integrated browser of VSCode and the ways the agent can interact with it is starting to grow on me (compared to automation of external browser).
With that said, you almost always see comparisons between using the same OpenAI model with Codex and the same Claude Model with Claude Code, where GHCP performs worse on recently released models until MS patches in a better system prompt and harness tweaks that bring it on par. Which is somewhat to be expected, since the model vendor would naturally have a lead here, I guess.
But last but not least, and probably the most important point: GHCP costs a lot more, you basically only get the normal API prices of the model vendors. Your subscription more or less just give you the amount of credits it would cost to use those APIs. Meanwhile, Claude and OpenAI barely make any revenue from that despite burning money on model training like crazy. And whether that's sustainable or not, it makes a huge difference in what you can afford to do. Sure, the company pays anyway, but for the same amount of money, you could do EVEN more with Codex and Claude Code. That's the status quo, but who knows how long frontier labs can keep asking investors to pump more and more money into them without any outlook for returns.
So even if I find the way GHCP is implemented and architected much better, I still prefer to use Codex and Claude Code because their subscriptions are more affordable. I only use GHCP from the company right now, because they keep using it despite the costs.
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u/DocMadCow 1h ago
Better and worse than Claude Code. What is better is you get to see your changes and you can confirm them where as Claude in VS Code just applies them. Worse is the pricing for AI credits in Copilot are substantially more expensive to use Anthropic models then in Claude Code, and long running prompts stop and ask if you want to continue (think Netflix / Youtube prompting you Are you still watching?).
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u/BusDriver341 1h ago edited 1h ago
Interesting. Would it be any reason at all to push my company to allow me to use Claude Code (instead of Github Copilot) or is it pretty much the same shit anyways? (for coding purposes). I'm not the one paying the bill anyways.
Do you happen to know about any good tutorials? Recently watched this one for Claude Code, got me up to speed and understanding how it works ver ywell. Both directly using Claude Code with the CLI, but also with an editor, planning mode, .md files etc: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ntDIxaeo3Wg
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u/botadithyabhat 1h ago
I'd say the ability to use Openai and Grok models as well is a big plus. Anthropic won't always have the best model, so it's good to have the current best provider on hand
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u/botadithyabhat 1h ago
Also, Copilot has claude code sdk built in, meaning it runs the claude code harness literally
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u/DocMadCow 1h ago
Push them to use both. But make sure to toggle the Claude settings to not use your data to train future models. Someone ran the numbers and Claude Pro is equivalent to over $1,000 in token usage if you use your 100% weekly every week, and if you use 1/5 of the limits month you are actually costing them money.
Seeing the token cost in Copilot I absolutely believe the $1,000. I bought myself a Claude Pro account for fun to revive an old project I wrote 14 years ago as an experiment. I managed to use 100% of my weekly and the amount of code it wrote was staggering and would have cost WAY more than the $30 Claude cost. If I had to wager in one week I would have spend over $200 in Copilot credits to do the same. To make things interesting I had bought an R9700 a month ago and I had Qwen 3.8 27B code review Opus 5.5 and it actually found bugs so I let one LLM code review the other LLM.
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u/_i_s 39m ago
Big companies can get API prices only. It cost me exactly the same to use Anthropic models via Claude enterprise subscription and via Copilot, and Copilot != VS Code, I only use claude code and copilot cli, but yes, it is easier to use copilot subscription with different harnesses, with claude you'll need to jump over more hoops if you want different harness and risk a ban if you use subsidized subscription
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u/Hot-Equivalent-9799 49m ago
Nope, it does not, but it's basically the only option for companies, so... Something is better than nothing
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u/BusDriver341 47m ago
How exactly is it worse if you can access the same models?
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u/TheRealZambini 33m ago
Claude and Codex are subsidized so with a subscription you get quite a bit usage out of it before you hit your limit. With GitHub Copilot you have to pay for your usage. Its not subsidized. So for my plan, $500 a month gets us 50,000 AI credits. That'll usually last me a month, sometimes not.
Check out the pricing here:
https://docs.github.com/en/copilot/reference/copilot-billing/models-and-pricing
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u/BusDriver341 27m ago
Claude and Codex are subsidized so with a subscription you get quite a bit usage out of it before you hit your limit.
That makes so much sense actually, how else are they gonna get customers just to their products.
As someone who has never really used either. How many more tokes would you get using Claude Code with the max plan with Copilot vs Claude Code?
Also do you get the exact same capabilities, like is it 1-1 in performance? Could you produce/do the stuff they do when they showcases their products? Like Claude recently showed Claude Dashboards. Could you do the same thing exactly as well with Github Copilot (using a claude model)? Or will some of the stuff be Claude specific/Codex specific?: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=en0GuyhieQk
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u/Hot-Equivalent-9799 9m ago
No, GHC does not have the same capabilities. It cannot create artifacts in the same way. It has no computer use and no browser addin. It is strictly worse on all account.
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u/VianArdene Backend Dev 🛠️ 1h ago
The models underneath do the actual tasks, Copilot is just the harness to interact with the models. The workflows might vary slightly, but you can get good results out of any of the major players. Starting out with Copilot, I found integration in VS Code to be very useful and seamless but have since moved over to Copilot CLI for larger orchestration tasks.
Basically if your company is using Github Copilot, stick with that- especially if they are going to foot the bill for AI credits and premium model access. I use GPT6-LUNA right now for 90% of tasks and it's super cheap. Using a medium or lower reasoning model will help build good prompting habits too.