Cursor vs GitHub Copilot

Two fact sheets from our own research, side by side — pricing, platforms, API access and status re-checked by us rather than quoted from the vendors.

The short answer

Cheaper paid plan: Cursor — $8/mo vs $10/mo for GitHub Copilot
Free plan: Both have one
Best fit: Cursor: Developers who want agents, cloud agents and code review inside one editor · GitHub Copilot: Teams standardising on one assistant across mixed IDEs and languages
Platforms: Cursor: macOS, Windows, Linux, Web · GitHub Copilot: VS Code extension, Web, macOS, Windows, Linux
Trust score: About even — Cursor 98, GitHub Copilot 94

From our own records as of each tool's last check. Anything we have not confirmed is left out rather than guessed. How we verify

CursorCode editor built around coding agents that work in the IDE, the terminal, the cloud and on pull requests

GitHub CopilotInline completions, chat and coding agents across the major IDEs

Side by side

Fact	Cursor	GitHub Copilot
Category	AI Code Editors & IDEs	AI Coding Assistants
Pricing model	Freemium	Freemium
Starts at	$8/mo	$10/mo
Trust score	98 / 100	94 / 100
Platforms	macOS, Windows, Linux, Web	VS Code extension, Web, macOS, Windows, Linux
Company	Anysphere, Inc.	GitHub, Inc.
Launched	2023	2021
Last verified	Oct 23, 2026	Oct 16, 2026

What our research says

Cursor

Still the editor most teams reach for when they want agents working inside a real IDE, with cloud agents, PR review and a CLI under one login. Since the SpaceX purchase the price list has been rebuilt around a usage pool shared with Grok: the old $20 Pro plan is gone, the cheapest tier only runs Grok models, and anyone attached to Claude, GPT or Gemini now pays for those separately at API list price.

Pros

Agents work with repository-wide context in the editor, the terminal and the cloud
Model menu still spans in-house Composer plus Anthropic, OpenAI, Google and xAI models
Usage allowance refreshes weekly rather than monthly, so one heavy day does not drain the month
Free tier remains for trying agent workflows
SOC 2, ISO 27001 and ISO 42001 certifications listed for enterprise procurement

Cons

The $8 Plus tier is restricted to Grok models, so the realistic entry price for a multi-model workflow is $30
Third-party models are no longer included in any plan and bill at API list price on top
Pricing has been restructured twice within a year, which makes budgeting a guess
Ownership moved to SpaceX in 2026, so roadmap and data policies may shift again

GitHub Copilot

Still the least disruptive way to put an assistant in front of a whole engineering org, but the credit meter means the $10 tier is no longer a flat-rate promise once anyone starts using agents seriously.

Pros

Broadest IDE coverage of any assistant: VS Code, Visual Studio, JetBrains, Neovim, Xcode
Free tier is real and needs no card, which makes org-wide trials trivial
Unlimited completions on every paid tier, so the meter only touches the expensive work

Cons

Four individual tiers from $10 to $100 make it hard to predict what a team actually costs
Credits are consumed by premium models at very different rates, so budgeting is guesswork
IP indemnity is Business-and-up only, which is often the deciding factor for enterprises

Which one fits

Choose Cursor if you need

Developers who want agents, cloud agents and code review inside one editor
Teams standardising on a single vendor for editor, review and Slack-driven agents
Users already paying for Grok who want one usage pool to cover both

Choose GitHub Copilot if you need

Teams standardising on one assistant across mixed IDEs and languages
Organisations that need IP indemnity and admin policy control
Developers who mostly want completions and occasional chat