17 ms·

GitHub Copilot is now available for free

553 points by ksec 2y ago

shadavias983 2y ago
[dead]
kwantaz 2y ago
Includes up to 2,000 completions and 50 chat requests per month.
- fzumstein 2y ago
  So basically it’s free for 1 day per month (I only use chat).
__jl__ 2y ago
Has anyone compared the updated Copilot with Cursor? The main updates I am wondering about are model selection and multi-file edits. I used copilot before these features, changed to Cursor and now I am wondering how much Copilot has closed the gap.
- vbezhenar 2y ago
  I'm using Copilot daily and I didn't find any improvements over last year. I think they introduced something called Copilot Edits which works kind of like aider judging from screenshots, but it's experimental, so I didn't try it. It's basically glorified autocomplete and that's about it. At least I didn't discover anything new.
  - x187463 2y ago
    The glorified autocomplete only applies to the completions. Granted, that's often the primary interaction, but it isn't the whole story. Using chat+edits can enable copilot to make changes across entire file(s). I still haven't found it perfectly reliable for large scale edits, but it has proved useful for handling the sort of busywork that may occur when refactoring. I'd love to hear stories where copilot actually made meaningful contributions to unique/interesting projects. The demo's often showcase making mundane modifications to yet-another-website or spawning a project into existence, which is neither very compelling nor something I do often.
- Klathmon 2y ago
  I've been loving Copilot Edits (their take on the multi file edits stuff). I'm personally still doing the process of finding and adding files to its context/working set (letting it try to do that part just doesn't work great yet), but then it quickly applied edits and gives you a review/checkpoint UI. The UI is still changing slightly every couple weeks as they improve things and polish it, but it's become a big enough part of my day to day that it's pretty much always open on the right pane of vscode for me.
- gregorvand 2y ago
  Have already moved to Cursor and realised I was only paying Github for Co-pilot - have downgraded immediately. No affiliation to Cursor, but the results are just a lot better and I don't need to be paying $20 to them AND $10 to co-pilot :/
asdev 2y ago
I ditched Copilot for Cursor and never looked back. Cursor might be the only other AI product with product market fit than ChatGPT, it's that good
- redox99 2y ago
  midjourney definitely has PMF.
- outlore 2y ago
  I just downloaded Cursor yesterday. I was wondering if you have used Copilot Edits and can compare it to Cursor Composer? Is Cursor much more superior when it comes to multi-file edits? Do you also have tips for how to give Cursor some documentation, is there a way to make it RAG on a folder of markdown documentation files?
  - rfoo 2y ago
    The actual killer feature for me is the much superior autocompletion, Cursor always suggests an edit inline once I stopped typing, without having me to type a prompt to ask it to do stuff. And it feels faster than GH Copilot, too. For us who prefer coding ourselves (instead of telling LLMs to do stuff and review the result) it is much much better.
    - vbezhenar 2y ago
      But Copilot does exactly the same? You don't need to prompt anything.
      - clvx 2y ago
        Exactly. This is how it works in vim/nvim using the copilot.vim plugin. Unless it's refactoring multiple files, I don't see the value. Now that you can choose your own model, I don't see many benefits with Cursor.
      - k__ 2y ago
        Yes, sounds like Copilot but without the benefit of using my favourite editor.
vouaobrasil 2y ago
I actually closed by Github account because I don't want to support AI or have my code trained on AI. Now I'm extra happy I shut it down.
- fifilura 2y ago
  > I don't want to support AI or have my code trained on AI. What are your arguments for this?
  - karmajunkie 2y ago
    GP doesn’t actually need arguments for it. As change agents AI companies need to argue why they should be allowed to train on others’ code, and clearly in GP’s case they’ve failed to meet the burden of proof.
  - vouaobrasil 2y ago
    1. I believe AI is detrimental. It makes us go too fast. It's all about production now, pure efficiency over individuals. 2. AI is too dangerous. Whatever innovations used for benign applications will be eventually used for more dangerous applications such as advanced genetic engineering and the military. 3. AI uses too much energy. It's disrespectful to the resources that we have. 4. AI is an apex technology amongst technologies designed to further enrich the elite and strengthen the power structure. 5. AI will also be used to completely replace workers at a speed much faster than other automations and I don't agree with that. The new jobs that have been created are demeaning such as "AI Prompt Engineer". 6. AI is one step closer to technology creating autonomous technology, and that's a bad thing. Society needs to slow down and find alternative, more sustainable solutions. AI is aligned with short-term economic efficiency and that is detrimental.
    - Mordisquitos 2y ago
      I strongly agree with your points 1, 3, 4 and 5, and I would add another one: 7. This idea of "AI" and how it is expected to be used is detrimental to human intellectual development, particularly for junior generations, and the presumption that AI will solve everything is what actually may bring us closer to the world of Idiocracy.
colesantiago 2y ago
This is great as an entry point to programming and also good for startups. and with the recent addition to o1 in Cursor the price of a mid-senior is set to around $20. It has been a while since my business needed to hire more senior engineers for a while, I only needed around 1 or 2 and the rest as interns using Copilot or Cursor. This is a great time to build projects and get into programming for everyone.
mossTechnician 2y ago
That free plan sounds too limited for continuous use. Is this the sort of plan that will convert non-users into paying customers? Compared to other paid plans for various AI services, this one seems like it's relatively the most enticing.
- simonw 2y ago
  Yes, this is meant to expose people to Copilot and convince them to subscribe.
- poincaredisk 2y ago
  Data point: I'm going to give copilot a try now.
jejeyyy77 2y ago
[flagged]
semiinfinitely 2y ago
soon: copilot generates a comment recommending a SaaS product 25% of the time. Pay $5 month to disable ads-comments
- deleted 2y ago
  [deleted]
paxys 2y ago
Really hope I don't get my open source maintainer Pro plan bumped down to free.
- kdaigle 2y ago
  It didn't. If you had a complimentary Copilot Pro plan, you'll continue to have it so you're good!
- simonw 2y ago
  The FAQ entry about the free tier for open source maintainers is still live here: https://github.com/pricing#i-work-on-open-source-projects-can-i-get-access-to-github-copilot-for-free https://github.com/pricing#i-work-on-open-source-projects-ca...
- OutOfHere 2y ago
  You can confirm at https://github.com/settings/copilot https://github.com/settings/copilot that you're still on the Pro plan.
- jart 2y ago
  We still get the pro plan, which saves $10/month. But that's not good enough. Popular open source maintainers deserve their most expensive enterprise plan. Microsoft indemnifies enterprises from me, but they won't indemnify me from enterprises. How is that fair? Is this how they treat the people who make their platform great? Rolling out the red carpet and granting open source developers enterprise privileges is the only way for Microsoft to prove that it's serious.
- fire_lake 2y ago
  That only lasts a year I think? Mine was cut after a while. Although I had stopped using it before that point.
  - tafath 2y ago
    It's renewable. > Once awarded, if you are still a maintainer of a popular open source project when your initial 12 months subscription expires then you will be able to renew your subscription for free. source: https://github.com/pricing#i-work-on-open-source-projects-can-i-get-access-to-github-copilot-for-free https://github.com/pricing#i-work-on-open-source-projects-ca...
verdverm 2y ago
I'd prefer something where I can bring my own model and pay the API costs directly, rather than yet another $20+/m/dev fee The free plan is not going to work for professional coding
- beyang 2y ago
  FYI, you can do that with Cody + Ollama. A good portion of our user community does exactly that: https://sourcegraph.com/blog/local-code-completion-with-ollama-and-cody https://sourcegraph.com/blog/local-code-completion-with-olla...
  - verdverm 2y ago
    I don't want a local LLM, it is slower, less capable, and slows the computer down generally What I would like is a deep integration with VS Code using my preferred foundational model I see Cursor has their own model and support for 2 foundational models, but not my preferred model and they charge a monthly fee. Supposedly: https://cloud.google.com/blog/products/ai-machine-learning/gemini-models-on-github-copilot https://cloud.google.com/blog/products/ai-machine-learning/g... but do I still have to pay microsoft $20+ per month? what I really want is pay-per-usage, not pay-for-access+usage
rvz 2y ago
Microsoft (unsurprisingly) has won the race to zero. We have had them 'embrace' the wider developer and open-source ecosystem by buying GitHub. Then they have 'extended' this with partnerships and deep developer integrations in VSCode and exclusive partnerships with OpenAI which in the background was used to build the best tools on the Microsoft platform with added enhancements and extensions. Now in the new intelligence age, we finally have the definition of what 'Extinguish' looks like to competitors wanting to compete with the best tools available, For free.
- cyanydeez 2y ago
  I think you're ignoring the part where a MBA shows up, figures they have a valuable monopoly and starts it's extortion racket. Realize: most of the digital ecosystem runs on whales, and thats who businesses go after. As long as wealth inequality thrives, that's the enshittification cycle.
- blackeyeblitzar 2y ago
  Bundling this with GitHub and giving it away for free reminds me of other times they’ve pulled this same tactic like with Teams. I don’t know why people respect Satya too much - he’s just another typical Microsoft monopolist. Others can also act unethically and abuse market position to grow their company.
snide 2y ago
Anyone using the Neovim plugin and suddenly starting to get rate limit errors? I'm already on pro, but it's asking me to upgrade to pro in Neovim?
- barrell 2y ago
  This happened to me as well. Came back from several weeks off and I kept getting these rate limit windows in vim today. I was/om on the OSS pro plan so I just figured the gravy train ended and unsintalled it
  - heywire 2y ago
    I saw a post on Reddit that said this was a bug and they’re working on it.
adhamsalama 2y ago
Great. More easily generated garbage code written by other people for me to review.
olup 2y ago
I use supermaven and cline with my own API key, a setup superior to cursor imo. Tried to go back to gh copilot yesterday but couldn't bear it for a full workday, and reverted to my previous arrangement.
- deleted 2y ago
  [deleted]
- jasondjk 2y ago
  This looks really interesting, cursor has been way better than copilot for me but supermaven looks great. I went down the rabbit hole with: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zLQuBSuzu2w&t=661s https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zLQuBSuzu2w&t=661s Your setup sounds interesting. What sort of API key do you use?
  - olup 2y ago
    We have an openai account for the company, so I mainly use gpt4o or 4o mini with supermaven and cline. I think Claude 3.5 works even better.
- kgilpin 2y ago
  FYI supermaven has joined Cursor https://www.cursor.com/blog/supermaven https://www.cursor.com/blog/supermaven
uludag 2y ago
I feel like this free plan is just enough to get someone hooked and require them to upgrade to paid. Like, imagine GPS navigation wasn't widespread and there was a paid service that gave you 20 free trips. Eventually your normal navigation skills would atrophy and you'd be obliged to purchase.
- skybrian 2y ago
  Some will want to pay more for better service, but it seems likely to be plenty for people who aren't full-time programmers and don't write code every day?
- cyanydeez 2y ago
  This, but _every single thing we rely on_. Real AI is definitely a rubicon.
- snug 2y ago
  Of course it is, why would they give away something without trying to capitalize on it later
- TiredOfLife 2y ago
  Congratulations, you are one of today's 10000* to learn about https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shareware https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shareware and free trials. *https://xkcd.com/1053/ https://xkcd.com/1053/
- maelito 2y ago
  GPS navigation, at least on Google Maps, is there free to get you to click on paid ad places.
- xpl 2y ago
  It is to collect more data for LLM training. To tap into proprietary code bases that are never uploaded to GitHub.
  - 8n4vidtmkvmk 2y ago
    Have you read the terms or are you just saying things?
beyang 2y ago
For those looking for a free coding assistant they can also use at work / in the enterprise, Cody has had a free tier for awhile: https://sourcegraph.com/cody https://sourcegraph.com/cody - Works with local models - Context-aware chat with very nice ergonomics (we see consistently more chats per day than other coding assistants) - Used by both indie devs and devs at very large enterprises like Palo Alto Networks - Hooks nicely into code search, which is important for building a strong mental model inside large, messy codebases - Open source core
- deleted 2y ago
  [deleted]
acc_297 2y ago
Interesting, I cancelled my plan a couple weeks ago so I suppose it's nice to know my vscode plugin won't stop working at the end of the month. If I ever pay for a different AI product I would prefer a pay-by-the-token plan vs a monthly charge since there are often spans of several weeks where I'm not using the tools at all.
- mehh 2y ago
  I cancelled mine today, as I’ve moved to cursor, so this is a great news as I’d still want to use it sometime. I do think this slightly aggressive tactic, I’m sure they claim otherwise!
- Eupolemos 2y ago
  We got Copilot for free at work, but I found it to be so annoying I disabled it after a week or so.
thot_experiment 2y ago
If anyone is looking for a free/local alternative Continue + Ollama is acceptable. If you're just doing run of the mill programming it will work well out of the box. I'm glad it's open source so I was able to fix most of the issues I had with it and now my copy is in a great place. The documentation is in places many versions behind the actual code so it can be tough to figure out how to set things up when you're venturing off the beaten path. That all being said the granularity of control you have when using local models leads to an experience that's far better than Cursor/Copilot, I really enjoy that it reads my mind a lot of the time now (because I have prompt engineered it to know how I think). Ultimately, isn't this just the way of things? https://thot-experiment.github.io/forever-problems/?set%20up%20my%20dev%20environment https://thot-experiment.github.io/forever-problems/?set%20up...
- TacticalCoder 2y ago
  On what kind of hardware/GPU are you running that locally?
  - deathtrader666 2y ago
    M1 MacBook Pro is sufficient for a Qwen model.
    - indigodaddy 2y ago
      with how much ram though?
      - int_19h 2y ago
        For Qwen-32B, 32Gb should be quite sufficient to run it at 4-bit quantization with full context.
        indigodaddy 2y ago
        Thanks, I need to figure out something to run on M4 Mac Mini standard 16G
ChrisArchitect 2y ago
Link should be announcement post: Announcing 150M developers and a new free tier for GitHub Copilot in VS Code https://github.blog/news-insights/product-news/github-copilot-in-vscode-free/ https://github.blog/news-insights/product-news/github-copilo...
ProfessorZoom 2y ago
Started using Supermaven since it was free and Copilot wasn't, but I stayed because it's faster and uses recent diffs to aid in generation
bugglebeetle 2y ago
Copilot in VSCode is so far behind Windsurf, not terribly excited about this and still happy to pay for a Codeium pro account. My only fear is someone buying them and screwing up model access, but maybe it’s fine if that is Anthropic. GPT-4 is terrible at coding and o-1 isn’t tell tiene for practical use.
- skybrian 2y ago
  For anyone else who never heard of Windsurf, it seems this was announced a month ago: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=42127882 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=42127882
  - vazma 2y ago
    Tried windsurf and the beginning was amazing, last few days I start realizing that is getting annoyingly stupid and slow. Open reddit and realized lots of people had the same issue with a lot of wild theories about it. I stopped my subscription and I am considering trying cursor just to compare. Tldr;×trying an agent Ai coding assistant was amazing and I think I will never go back!
    - bugglebeetle 2y ago
      They use a lot of custom models and logic chaining, so I think this is more search and retrieval optimization or similar problems, I guess maybe some Anthropic API issues as well. I’ve seen the variance too and was wondering if was load related. Overall, still loving it, even if there’s some bleeding edge bumpiness.
- fuzzythinker 2y ago
  Concur. Dropped Copilot for Cursor and then tried Windsurf. Windsurf is the keeper for me.
  - thomasfromcdnjs 2y ago
    This is me too. Windsurf feels perfect right now.
bbbruno222 2y ago
Before GitHub Copilot was a paid feature. This only shows to the Cursor team that they are going to the right direction. The slow elephant enterprise GitHub will never be as good/fast as Cursor, they had their chance but they have joined the party of "keeping the devs under our umbrella with free features" too late.
- layer8 2y ago
  If Cursor remains successful, they’re likely to turn into a slow elephant enterprise as well eventually. That’s rather the rule than the exception, unfortunately.
  - bbkane 2y ago
    Are there any exceptions? I feel like small companies can be nimble because they don't have as many customers to lose, but larger orgs need to worry much more about existing customers: scale, migrations, backwards compatibility, legal compliance, supply chains...
forty 2y ago
Is there any solution that is 1- fully local 2- open source 3- fast on CPU only 4- provide reasonable good results for smart auto complete ? I don't want my work to depend on proprietary or even worse, online, software. We (software engineer) got lucky that all the good tools are free software and I feel we have a collective interest in making sure it stays that way (unless we want to be like farmers having to pay Monsanto tax for just being able to work because we don't know how to work differently anymore)
- Sohcahtoa82 2y ago
  > 3- fast on CPU only Unless you've got a CPU with AI-specific accelerators and unified memory, I doubt you're going to find that. I can't imagine any model under 7B parameters is useful, and even with dual-channel DDR5-6400 RAM (Which I think is 102 GB/s?) and 8-bit quantization, you could only generate 15 tokens/sec, and that's assuming your CPU can actually process that fast. Your memory bandwidth could easily be the bottleneck. EDIT: If I have something wrong, I'd rather be corrected so I'm not spreading incorrect information, rather than being silently downvoted.
  - thot_experiment 2y ago
    deepseek-1b, qwen2.5-coder:1.5b, and starcoder2-3b are all pretty fast on cpu due to their small size, you're not going to be able to have conversations with them or ask them to perform transformations on your code but autocomplete should work well
    - ghthor 2y ago
      Starcoder3B works great in my second hand rtx2080. Can’t run 7B, just a hair too little Ram, but still great completions
      - thot_experiment 2y ago
        You should definitely be able to run 7B at q6_k and that might be outperformed by 15b w/ a sub 4bpw imatrix quant, iQ3_M should fit into your vram. (i personally wouldn't bother with sub 4bpw quants on models < ~70b parameters) Though if it all works great for you then no reason to mess with it, but if you want to tinker you can absolutely run larger models at smaller quant sizes, q6_k is basically indistinguishable from fp16 so there's no real downside.
beepbooptheory 2y ago
Working with people who use this stuff a lot has made my current job just so so much harder in every way its astonishing. I used to solve problems with code, now I feel like hermeneut or dream analyzer: absent of human intention, codebases quickly become these weird piles of different idioms, even without considering the hallucinations (those have definitely cost me a few sleepless nights now either way). But I am just venting. All of yall have clearly won, I get it. I am just grateful I have lived a full life doing other things other than computers, so this all isn't too sad other than the prospect of being poor again. I will always have my beautiful emacs and I will always be hacking. I will always have my Stallman, my Knuth, my Andy Wingo, my SICP. I feel it is accomplishment enough to have progressed in this career as I have, especially as a self taught developer. But I kinda want to let yall deal with slop now, you really seem to like it! Maybe I'll get another degree now, or just make some silly music and video games again. It's liberating just thinking about being free from this "new way" we work now. Thanks for all the fish though!
- forty 2y ago
  Wait a bit, it won't last
  - throw234234234 2y ago
    In what way - that those things/people doing that will fail? Or the tooling will get better that this is no longer a problem? Completely different outcomes with very different consequences.
    - forty 2y ago
      I think people will realize those AI are not worth the cost (both money wise and environment wise). Right now money is raining on everything AI, but at some point they will want to have a return and most projects will shut down, and we can move on
      - Breza 2y ago
        I'm inclined to agree with you. There are two directions of pressure. First, the tech just doesn't work as well as it needs to, and it's not clear if that will change in the next decade. Second, the companies are losing money. The investment bet is that the AI companies will make rapid advances in their models such that they'll be able to charge enough to turn a profit before the bubble pops. I'm not convinced.
mistercheph 2y ago
llama3.3:70b-instruct-q4_K_M (~43 GB, 2x 3090/4090 or fast memory cpu inference on e.g. macs) or qwen2.5-coder:32b-instruct-q5_K_M (~23 GB) or gemma2:9b-instruct-q6_K (~7.5 GB) and https://github.com/bernardo-bruning/ollama-copilot https://github.com/bernardo-bruning/ollama-copilot or alternatively: https://github.com/ollama/ollama https://github.com/ollama/ollama + https://github.com/olimorris/codecompanion.nvim https://github.com/olimorris/codecompanion.nvim
- TiredOfLife 2y ago
  Or just get yourself a cerebras cluster and run full llama-3.1-405B.
sleepybrett 2y ago
'free', you code is the only price they require.
- deleted 2y ago
  [deleted]
SirMaster 2y ago
Not for vs2022?
butz 2y ago
Are there any local models that provide only very limited knowledge, e.g. autocomplete and chat for single programming language? Or is my thinking, that such limited model would be smaller and work faster even on CPU, is incorrect?
- HyprMusic 2y ago
  I believe Jetbrains' built in models work like that but unfortunately they force you to disable any competing AI chat plugins so you lose out on access to Claude etc. if you use them.
richardw 2y ago
I assume the recommendation-edit feedback loop is valuable and so is access to code/text that isn’t on GitHub yet? Email says “GitHub and affiliates may use your data for product improvement.” Access to all the little changes in between commits seems valuable. If you’re looking to compete on access to data I imagine this helps. Experts weigh in pls?
elcapitan 2y ago
Is there some way to check what I currently use? I rarely use chat, so 50 per month probably wouldn't be an issue, but completion has become my main completion tool, not sure if I'd stay under 2000..
- ryandrake 2y ago
  Came here to ask the same question. I bet I have 2000+ code completions in a single, fevered, Mountain Dew fueled day of coding, which would be my quota for a month of the free tier.
- TranquilMarmot 2y ago
  Can you see it here? https://github.com/settings/billing/summary https://github.com/settings/billing/summary I have Copilot from an org I'm in so I just see "You are assigned a seat as part of a GitHub Copilot Business subscription"
  - elcapitan 2y ago
    No, unfortunately it just tells me that I spent $10. There seem to be usage stats for other pro offers by Github, which I don't use though.
ak_111 2y ago
Anyone tried replit? Is it worth the money with free copilot now from Github?
pestkranker 2y ago
I hope access to Code Review in GitHub will be available to paid users soon! It's going to be a game changer as a first level of code review before real people get involved with the PR.
- timrogers 2y ago
  I love to hear this as the PM for Copilot code review at GitHub! We’re running a preview of the code review feature right now, and are looking forward to opening it to all paid subscribers soon. If you’d like to try it sooner, I can hook you up - just email my HN username @github.com :)
  - pestkranker 2y ago
    I have just sent you an email. Thank you Tim!
igorguerrero 2y ago
I think this is a bad move... I immediately switched, 2000 completions for me (I have it disabled by default on Neovim) is enough, and 50 chats, more than enough I didn't even know they had chat like ChatGPT.
- selcuka 2y ago
  If you've disabled completions and didn't know about chats, what were you using Copilot for?
  - igorguerrero 2y ago
    I have a toggle to enable it back when needed, I found this is way better, for me, to stay focused and make less errors. But I do enable it, for example when I'm coding in a language or project I'm not used to, I'd say I use like 20% of my coding time, but that 20% is useful, it's when google doesn't work for me either...
orra 2y ago
I like the mediocrity of the example they headlined: the user asks for unit tests. Copilot writes only two test cases, so not exactly great coverage. Plus, the test cases uses python's unittest, which isn't as slick as pytest.
- SkyPuncher 2y ago
  I use Copilot a lot for writing specs. I've come to prefer that it only writes one or two specs to start. It's a good way for me to quickly review it has the structure correct. When it throws too many at me at once, it can be harder to make broad tweaks. As for `pytest`, I just have to remind it I'm using pytest. "Write pytests for this" is sufficient to get it to do what I want.
- crucialfelix 2y ago
  You can write a prompt stating how tests should be writen in your project. It goes on some .vscode file. It's consulted anytime it's writing a test, even in a conversation. I state where my factory fixtures are to be found.
- sionisrecur 2y ago
  Well they didn't ask for pytest tests. I wonder if AIs are like bored developers, doing the minimum necessary to complete the task instead of going the extra mile and make things better. Perhaps that will be the differentiator in the future. Or they just need to adjust the pre-prompt.
siilats 2y ago
For JetBrains IDE-s the open source CodeGPT plugin works much better. Many more models to choose from
dr_kiszonka 2y ago
Any mobile devs here using Copilot, Cursor or Supermaven? I am curious if you have any recommendations.
- flawn 2y ago
  On Mobile, my experience was really poor. It really does not perform for e.g. Flutter. Probably not too much training data on Flutter Code.
- maskil 2y ago
  I found that AI models really have a hard time with Android native, kept reverting to the latest libraries which don't have broad support. I had more success with Flutter but still needs a decent amount of course correction.
blackeyeblitzar 2y ago
Microsoft giving away a losing product for free is the exact kind of thing that proves they’re too big. This is just a desperate move to suck oxygen away from startups in this same space that compete with them. We need new antitrust laws ASAP.
- swah 2y ago
  Couldn't they acquire for a cool 100 M or something? Its a VSCode fork!
CliveBloomers 2y ago
So you don't have to pay the yearly fee? Also did anyone get the email and Outlook picked up the link as harmful?
sitkack 2y ago
They need more training data.
- throw234234234 2y ago
  That was my first thought too. The Github Copilot CEO recently said in no uncertain words he wants to make everyone a dev - "a billion developers". Of course this is code for make current dev's redundant IMO similar to how everyone can type these days too making typists redundant. The MBA types really really want this outcome for all intellectual work. I can imagine that good enterprise/business level training data (the layer above the open source widgets we compose) is not as easy coming on the internet as the open source libraries themselves are. But through their free tool they would get access to this especially from small scrappy startup's that will want to save costs. Seeing some startup's go from zero to next big thing on Copilot will be great training data.
limerickwin 2y ago
hm.. it seems like I won't use this service for a while as I got the following error message while starting IntelliJ today: You've reached your monthly code completion limit. Upgrade your plan to Copilot Pro (30-day Free Trial) or wait until -4712-01-01 for your limit to reset to continue coding with GitHub Copilot.
- mongol 2y ago
  Wow 4712 BCE was when the pyramids were new and shiny. Just kidding, it turns out it was the first Julian day. Got some help here: January 1, 4713 BCE marks the beginning of the Julian Day count. This system was introduced by Joseph Scaliger in 1583 CE. Scaliger selected 4713 BCE as the starting point because it is the nearest date where three cycles—solar, lunar, and Roman indiction—coincide. These cycles are: The 28-year solar cycle. The 19-year Metonic lunar cycle. The 15-year Roman indiction cycle.
huqedato 2y ago
I switched to Codeium free tier three months ago and never looked back to Copilot since then. Copilot is a mess on Julia and Elixir/Erlang code.
- shlomo_z 2y ago
  Yeah, codeium free tier blows copilot paid out of water
- deleted 2y ago
  [deleted]
TonyTrapp 2y ago
They appear to be SO excited about their new feature that they sent an email about it to every single email address associated with my Github accounts. Which is quite a few addresses that have been used for git commits over the years.
- hug 2y ago
  Does that include the email addresses configured in your ~/.gitconfig? If so, I apologise to fart@butts.com.
  - TonyTrapp 2y ago
    Only if you have manually associated them with your Github account so that they show up as "your" commits, as far as I'm aware (although I'm not sure how deep Github's integration with desktop tools reaches these days)
- sexy_seedbox 2y ago
  But are you Stack Overflow excited?!
  - sapphire42 2y ago
    This should not be downvoted :) lighten up you guys!
- az226 2y ago
  GitHub is scared. It’s losing mind share with startups who are leapfrogging them, Cursor, Poolside, Augment, Cognition, Codeium.
TuringNYC 2y ago
The real cost is that society at large is no longer contributing to the StackOverflow, so problems and solutions are all now stored in proprietary databases (which granted SO also was) but also now stored in an invisible proprietary database
- daemin 2y ago
  The StackOverflow database was open source for a while, but I haven't checked for a data dump since the new management came in.
  - TuringNYC 2y ago
    True, may not be open source, but it is still viewable. Best for Society: Open Source <-- Where SO was Medium for Society: Proprietary, but openly browsable <-- Where SO is Worst for Society: Proprietary, not browsable <-- LLM-based code assist tools
    - Wowfunhappy 2y ago
      ...where would you classify Llama in here? That's not really "open source" despite what Facebook calls it, but I wouldn't call it proprietary, anyone can download and use the whole thing locally.
      - pabs3 2y ago
        "public weights"?
        _heimdall 2y ago
        Can those weights be interpreted by anyone viewing them? If not, it seems like publicly available, obfuscated code at best.
        fragmede 2y ago
toisanji 2y ago
I have been using Cursor, but I am a vim user at heart. What is the best plugin I can use that gives us the power of AI coding, but for vim? Every time I look, the plugins seem to be far behind Cursor.
- deleted 2y ago
  [deleted]
- finder83 2y ago
  https://github.com/github/copilot.vim https://github.com/github/copilot.vim works pretty well for inline autocompletion https://github.com/CopilotC-Nvim/CopilotChat.nvim https://github.com/CopilotC-Nvim/CopilotChat.nvim is the best I've found for the chat-type interaction. It lets you choose models/etc. It's still not quite as nice as cursor, but decent enough that I enjoy using them
- strangelove026 2y ago
  I've been slightly curious about Avante, but I switched to vim about a year ago and still have other things I'm working on first. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4kzSV2xctjc https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4kzSV2xctjc
- azemetre 2y ago
  Not vim, but neovim: https://github.com/olimorris/codecompanion.nvim https://github.com/olimorris/codecompanion.nvim Haven't used it yet but it supports many models.
bionhoward 2y ago
Microsoft would need to pay me to use Copilot. Seems like a major scam for them to learn from our code and then tell us we can’t use it to make our own competing AI systems. “Limits on use of data from the AI Services. You may not use the AI services, or data from the AI services, to create, train, or improve (directly or indirectly) any other AI service.” From https://www.microsoft.com/en/servicesagreement#13r_AIServices https://www.microsoft.com/en/servicesagreement#13r_AIService... TODAY — the ridiculous focus on AI over core business at github is the number one thing likely to kill the platform. They are coasting on network effects
- w_for_wumbo 2y ago
  "You may not use the AI services, or data from the AI services, to create, train, or improve (directly or indirectly) any other AI service" - It's not like anyone chose to indirectly train these existing systems - this means that anything published online that could be scraped and used to train something is not allowed right?
  - codebje 2y ago
    It wouldn't be an online service's T&C document if it didn't include at least one vague, threatening, unworkable, and unenforceable condition. The useless but true answer is nobody knows what's allowed and what isn't, until it's tested in court. Practically (not being a lawyer, though) I suspect that the clause will never be pursued on its own, because it's bullshit and everyone involved knows it is so. In your scenario, though, assuming you publish in a way that's not overtly and primarily meant for AI training, I think the "use" of data isn't yours and would be hard to argue as violating the terms of the agreement. Of course we might take it to the absurd end of this line of reasoning and demand that any code base that Copilot was involved in should have a license term preventing the training of any other AI in it, and we wind up in a place where all AIs are trained on source material they're explicitly licensed not to be trained on, or trained only on a mostly static set of "pre-AI" publications. Daft stuff.
- throwaway888abc 2y ago
  psssst *it's a secret If You're Not Paying For It, You Become The Product (2012) https://www.forbes.com/sites/marketshare/2012/03/05/if-youre-not-paying-for-it-you-become-the-product/ https://www.forbes.com/sites/marketshare/2012/03/05/if-youre...
devops000 2y ago
What if I have already paid the annual plan?
- Jgrubb 2y ago
  The you are already a paying customer.
Brian_K_White 2y ago
It's like the U2 album on everyone's iphone. It's a Homer bowling ball.
hankchinaski 2y ago
Copilot is totally useless.
bravetraveler 2y ago
Hopefully the people championing this at work will stop trying to get me to switch
croemer 2y ago
The free version has severe usage limits: "Includes up to 2,000 completions and 50 chat requests per month." More of a 7d trial that resets every month.
deleted 2y ago
[deleted]
jusonchan81 2y ago
Could this be a strategy to get access to more code than what is available in just Github? More training data means better models I assume.
- dsp_person 2y ago
  I just enabled copilot and I see in the settings this is checked by default https://github.com/settings/copilot https://github.com/settings/copilot > - [x] Allow GitHub to use my code snippets from the code editor for product improvements > > Allow GitHub, its affiliates and third parties to use my code snippets to research and improve GitHub Copilot suggestions, related models and product features. More information in About GitHub Copilot privacy. Should we still be concerned if opting out?
  - bravetraveler 2y ago
    It's been my experience that, with time, opt-outs from SaaS multiply. People opt out, some PM or whoever decides they need 'metrics' (numbers to spin)... and more categories or qualifications are summarily added. Starting the cycle again. I assume they'll send a privacy policy update in at most six months. I wouldn't call it concerning. Routine. I won't participate, that's for sure.
deleted 2y ago
[deleted]
KuriousCat 2y ago
Is there something like a startpage that can act as intermediary and make the queries and responses public? And searchable?
solarkraft 2y ago
I have already replaced Copilot with continue.dev+qwen2.5-coder:1.5b on Ollama and don't see myself coming back. For the last year Copilot completions have been slow, unreliable and just bad, coming in at random moments, messing up syntax in dumb ways, being slow and sometimes not showing up at all. It has been painfully bad even though it used to be good. Maybe it's since they switched from Codex to the general GPTs ...
- euoia 2y ago
  Do you have a guide for how to set this up? I am also pretty dissatisfied with Copilot completions.
  - huijzer 2y ago
    Probably via Tabby (https://www.tabbyml.com/ https://www.tabbyml.com/)
    - ghthor 2y ago
      Tabby is great! Though they broke the vim plugin going for lsp support, but older version still works fine.
  - nbbaier 2y ago
    Also interested !
  - mfkp 2y ago
    looks like the parent comment hints at https://docs.continue.dev/chat/model-setup#local-offline-experience https://docs.continue.dev/chat/model-setup#local-offline-exp... (Assuming your computer has the specs necessary to run ollama)
    - maeil 2y ago
      That page is about chat while the parent comment seems to be about completions, that's the codepilot feature most of us will be looking to replace/improve on.
solarkraft 2y ago
> Now automatically integrated into VS Code Congratulations to Microsoft for owning enough of the stack to make doing this possible.
chmod775 2y ago
Hilarious. The code "fix" Copilot suggests in their example[1] is wrong on some many levels. It's trying to use await in something that is not an async function. From the other examples it's clear this is likely React's useEffect. You could not even make that callback an async function if you wanted to - this naive fix for that leads to subtle bugs. And last but not least: The issue here - if there's any - can already be caught by linter rules like no-floating-promises in eslint/by using TypeScript instead. You don't need a shitty AI linter confidently suggesting wrong code. That's how you advertise the product? I'm guessing competent coders at GitHub have already been replaced by juniors+copilot. [1] https://i.imgur.com/FHnsqyP.png https://i.imgur.com/FHnsqyP.png
- TranquilMarmot 2y ago
  > been replaced by juniors+copilot More likely replaced by seniors who forgot how to write code by hand because they're relying so much on AI. I don't think juniors are a thing anymore.
- soco 2y ago
  I've read enthusiastic reports about Cursor but my very short trial experience was quite similar to yours: refactoring by duplicating code, mixing up cases, server connection errors, to the point where I just gave up after one day. It might be me of course and my poor prompting skills but hey if it offers me "rename symbol" I kinda expect it to rename the symbol AND its occurences. Oh well. I'll check again in a year or something.
  - heeton 2y ago
    I personally love Cursor but never using prompts. I just use it's auto-complete and smart-tab features it saves me a tonne of manual typing. (I type fast, yet now find switching to a "manual" editor annoyingly slow). I don't let it write blocks of code, but usually I'm ~5 keystrokes into a line change or addition and it can complete the rest. I also use a text-file todo in the same project to help it with context of what I'm trying to do.
    - 2y ago
gloosx 2y ago
>Includes up to 2,000 completions and 50 chat requests per month. Never used Copilot or any AI assisting tool, is this a lot or is it as free as cheese in a mousetrap?
- az226 2y ago
  Mousetrap.
- TranquilMarmot 2y ago
  The org I work for pays for Copilot so I'm used to using it. It would probably take me 10 days to use up 50 chats? 5 a day seems about right. I have NO idea how many completions I use.
choina 2y ago
[flagged]
- choina 2y ago
  Looks like Microsofties are sensitive birches. Why would you downvote the truth?
PeterStuer 2y ago
Free for upto: - 50 chats - 2.000 code completions per month. After that it is starting from 10$/month.
t_believ-er873 2y ago
Good news
shadavias983 2y ago
[dead]
shadavias983 2y ago
[dead]
ribadeo 2y ago
[dead]
anonymous31415 2y ago
How do you disable it again? You can't! Once you pressed "Start using Copilot" the copilot menu shows up on all repositories within GitHub.com for careless or uninformed users to leak proprietary code to their training set.
herigutawan 2y ago
[flagged]

553 points by ksec 2y ago

shadavias983 2y ago

[dead]

kwantaz 2y ago

Includes up to 2,000 completions and 50 chat requests per month.

fzumstein 2y ago
So basically it’s free for 1 day per month (I only use chat).

__jl__ 2y ago

Has anyone compared the updated Copilot with Cursor? The main updates I am wondering about are model selection and multi-file edits. I used copilot before these features, changed to Cursor and now I am wondering how much Copilot has closed the gap.

vbezhenar 2y ago
I'm using Copilot daily and I didn't find any improvements over last year. I think they introduced something called Copilot Edits which works kind of like aider judging from screenshots, but it's experimental, so I didn't try it. It's basically glorified autocomplete and that's about it. At least I didn't discover anything new.
- x187463 2y ago
  The glorified autocomplete only applies to the completions. Granted, that's often the primary interaction, but it isn't the whole story. Using chat+edits can enable copilot to make changes across entire file(s). I still haven't found it perfectly reliable for large scale edits, but it has proved useful for handling the sort of busywork that may occur when refactoring. I'd love to hear stories where copilot actually made meaningful contributions to unique/interesting projects. The demo's often showcase making mundane modifications to yet-another-website or spawning a project into existence, which is neither very compelling nor something I do often.
Klathmon 2y ago
I've been loving Copilot Edits (their take on the multi file edits stuff). I'm personally still doing the process of finding and adding files to its context/working set (letting it try to do that part just doesn't work great yet), but then it quickly applied edits and gives you a review/checkpoint UI. The UI is still changing slightly every couple weeks as they improve things and polish it, but it's become a big enough part of my day to day that it's pretty much always open on the right pane of vscode for me.
gregorvand 2y ago
Have already moved to Cursor and realised I was only paying Github for Co-pilot - have downgraded immediately. No affiliation to Cursor, but the results are just a lot better and I don't need to be paying $20 to them AND $10 to co-pilot :/

asdev 2y ago

I ditched Copilot for Cursor and never looked back. Cursor might be the only other AI product with product market fit than ChatGPT, it's that good

redox99 2y ago
midjourney definitely has PMF.
outlore 2y ago
I just downloaded Cursor yesterday. I was wondering if you have used Copilot Edits and can compare it to Cursor Composer? Is Cursor much more superior when it comes to multi-file edits? Do you also have tips for how to give Cursor some documentation, is there a way to make it RAG on a folder of markdown documentation files?
- rfoo 2y ago
  The actual killer feature for me is the much superior autocompletion, Cursor always suggests an edit inline once I stopped typing, without having me to type a prompt to ask it to do stuff. And it feels faster than GH Copilot, too. For us who prefer coding ourselves (instead of telling LLMs to do stuff and review the result) it is much much better.
  - vbezhenar 2y ago
    But Copilot does exactly the same? You don't need to prompt anything.
    - clvx 2y ago
      Exactly. This is how it works in vim/nvim using the copilot.vim plugin. Unless it's refactoring multiple files, I don't see the value. Now that you can choose your own model, I don't see many benefits with Cursor.
    - k__ 2y ago
      Yes, sounds like Copilot but without the benefit of using my favourite editor.

vouaobrasil 2y ago

I actually closed by Github account because I don't want to support AI or have my code trained on AI. Now I'm extra happy I shut it down.

fifilura 2y ago
> I don't want to support AI or have my code trained on AI. What are your arguments for this?
- karmajunkie 2y ago
  GP doesn’t actually need arguments for it. As change agents AI companies need to argue why they should be allowed to train on others’ code, and clearly in GP’s case they’ve failed to meet the burden of proof.
- vouaobrasil 2y ago
  1. I believe AI is detrimental. It makes us go too fast. It's all about production now, pure efficiency over individuals. 2. AI is too dangerous. Whatever innovations used for benign applications will be eventually used for more dangerous applications such as advanced genetic engineering and the military. 3. AI uses too much energy. It's disrespectful to the resources that we have. 4. AI is an apex technology amongst technologies designed to further enrich the elite and strengthen the power structure. 5. AI will also be used to completely replace workers at a speed much faster than other automations and I don't agree with that. The new jobs that have been created are demeaning such as "AI Prompt Engineer". 6. AI is one step closer to technology creating autonomous technology, and that's a bad thing. Society needs to slow down and find alternative, more sustainable solutions. AI is aligned with short-term economic efficiency and that is detrimental.
  - Mordisquitos 2y ago
    I strongly agree with your points 1, 3, 4 and 5, and I would add another one: 7. This idea of "AI" and how it is expected to be used is detrimental to human intellectual development, particularly for junior generations, and the presumption that AI will solve everything is what actually may bring us closer to the world of Idiocracy.

colesantiago 2y ago

This is great as an entry point to programming and also good for startups. and with the recent addition to o1 in Cursor the price of a mid-senior is set to around $20. It has been a while since my business needed to hire more senior engineers for a while, I only needed around 1 or 2 and the rest as interns using Copilot or Cursor. This is a great time to build projects and get into programming for everyone.

mossTechnician 2y ago

That free plan sounds too limited for continuous use. Is this the sort of plan that will convert non-users into paying customers? Compared to other paid plans for various AI services, this one seems like it's relatively the most enticing.

simonw 2y ago
Yes, this is meant to expose people to Copilot and convince them to subscribe.
poincaredisk 2y ago
Data point: I'm going to give copilot a try now.

jejeyyy77 2y ago

[flagged]

semiinfinitely 2y ago

soon: copilot generates a comment recommending a SaaS product 25% of the time. Pay $5 month to disable ads-comments

deleted 2y ago
[deleted]

paxys 2y ago

Really hope I don't get my open source maintainer Pro plan bumped down to free.

kdaigle 2y ago
It didn't. If you had a complimentary Copilot Pro plan, you'll continue to have it so you're good!
simonw 2y ago
The FAQ entry about the free tier for open source maintainers is still live here: https://github.com/pricing#i-work-on-open-source-projects-can-i-get-access-to-github-copilot-for-free https://github.com/pricing#i-work-on-open-source-projects-ca...
OutOfHere 2y ago
You can confirm at https://github.com/settings/copilot https://github.com/settings/copilot that you're still on the Pro plan.
jart 2y ago
We still get the pro plan, which saves $10/month. But that's not good enough. Popular open source maintainers deserve their most expensive enterprise plan. Microsoft indemnifies enterprises from me, but they won't indemnify me from enterprises. How is that fair? Is this how they treat the people who make their platform great? Rolling out the red carpet and granting open source developers enterprise privileges is the only way for Microsoft to prove that it's serious.
fire_lake 2y ago
That only lasts a year I think? Mine was cut after a while. Although I had stopped using it before that point.
- tafath 2y ago
  It's renewable. > Once awarded, if you are still a maintainer of a popular open source project when your initial 12 months subscription expires then you will be able to renew your subscription for free. source: https://github.com/pricing#i-work-on-open-source-projects-can-i-get-access-to-github-copilot-for-free https://github.com/pricing#i-work-on-open-source-projects-ca...

verdverm 2y ago

I'd prefer something where I can bring my own model and pay the API costs directly, rather than yet another $20+/m/dev fee The free plan is not going to work for professional coding

beyang 2y ago
FYI, you can do that with Cody + Ollama. A good portion of our user community does exactly that: https://sourcegraph.com/blog/local-code-completion-with-ollama-and-cody https://sourcegraph.com/blog/local-code-completion-with-olla...
- verdverm 2y ago
  I don't want a local LLM, it is slower, less capable, and slows the computer down generally What I would like is a deep integration with VS Code using my preferred foundational model I see Cursor has their own model and support for 2 foundational models, but not my preferred model and they charge a monthly fee. Supposedly: https://cloud.google.com/blog/products/ai-machine-learning/gemini-models-on-github-copilot https://cloud.google.com/blog/products/ai-machine-learning/g... but do I still have to pay microsoft $20+ per month? what I really want is pay-per-usage, not pay-for-access+usage

rvz 2y ago

Microsoft (unsurprisingly) has won the race to zero. We have had them 'embrace' the wider developer and open-source ecosystem by buying GitHub. Then they have 'extended' this with partnerships and deep developer integrations in VSCode and exclusive partnerships with OpenAI which in the background was used to build the best tools on the Microsoft platform with added enhancements and extensions. Now in the new intelligence age, we finally have the definition of what 'Extinguish' looks like to competitors wanting to compete with the best tools available, For free.

cyanydeez 2y ago
I think you're ignoring the part where a MBA shows up, figures they have a valuable monopoly and starts it's extortion racket. Realize: most of the digital ecosystem runs on whales, and thats who businesses go after. As long as wealth inequality thrives, that's the enshittification cycle.
blackeyeblitzar 2y ago
Bundling this with GitHub and giving it away for free reminds me of other times they’ve pulled this same tactic like with Teams. I don’t know why people respect Satya too much - he’s just another typical Microsoft monopolist. Others can also act unethically and abuse market position to grow their company.

snide 2y ago

Anyone using the Neovim plugin and suddenly starting to get rate limit errors? I'm already on pro, but it's asking me to upgrade to pro in Neovim?

barrell 2y ago
This happened to me as well. Came back from several weeks off and I kept getting these rate limit windows in vim today. I was/om on the OSS pro plan so I just figured the gravy train ended and unsintalled it
- heywire 2y ago
  I saw a post on Reddit that said this was a bug and they’re working on it.

adhamsalama 2y ago

Great. More easily generated garbage code written by other people for me to review.

olup 2y ago

I use supermaven and cline with my own API key, a setup superior to cursor imo. Tried to go back to gh copilot yesterday but couldn't bear it for a full workday, and reverted to my previous arrangement.

deleted 2y ago
[deleted]
jasondjk 2y ago
This looks really interesting, cursor has been way better than copilot for me but supermaven looks great. I went down the rabbit hole with: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zLQuBSuzu2w&t=661s https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zLQuBSuzu2w&t=661s Your setup sounds interesting. What sort of API key do you use?
- olup 2y ago
  We have an openai account for the company, so I mainly use gpt4o or 4o mini with supermaven and cline. I think Claude 3.5 works even better.
kgilpin 2y ago
FYI supermaven has joined Cursor https://www.cursor.com/blog/supermaven https://www.cursor.com/blog/supermaven

uludag 2y ago

I feel like this free plan is just enough to get someone hooked and require them to upgrade to paid. Like, imagine GPS navigation wasn't widespread and there was a paid service that gave you 20 free trips. Eventually your normal navigation skills would atrophy and you'd be obliged to purchase.

skybrian 2y ago
Some will want to pay more for better service, but it seems likely to be plenty for people who aren't full-time programmers and don't write code every day?
cyanydeez 2y ago
This, but _every single thing we rely on_. Real AI is definitely a rubicon.
snug 2y ago
Of course it is, why would they give away something without trying to capitalize on it later
TiredOfLife 2y ago
Congratulations, you are one of today's 10000* to learn about https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shareware https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shareware and free trials. *https://xkcd.com/1053/ https://xkcd.com/1053/
maelito 2y ago
GPS navigation, at least on Google Maps, is there free to get you to click on paid ad places.
xpl 2y ago
It is to collect more data for LLM training. To tap into proprietary code bases that are never uploaded to GitHub.
- 8n4vidtmkvmk 2y ago
  Have you read the terms or are you just saying things?

beyang 2y ago

For those looking for a free coding assistant they can also use at work / in the enterprise, Cody has had a free tier for awhile: https://sourcegraph.com/cody https://sourcegraph.com/cody - Works with local models - Context-aware chat with very nice ergonomics (we see consistently more chats per day than other coding assistants) - Used by both indie devs and devs at very large enterprises like Palo Alto Networks - Hooks nicely into code search, which is important for building a strong mental model inside large, messy codebases - Open source core

deleted 2y ago
[deleted]

acc_297 2y ago

Interesting, I cancelled my plan a couple weeks ago so I suppose it's nice to know my vscode plugin won't stop working at the end of the month. If I ever pay for a different AI product I would prefer a pay-by-the-token plan vs a monthly charge since there are often spans of several weeks where I'm not using the tools at all.

mehh 2y ago
I cancelled mine today, as I’ve moved to cursor, so this is a great news as I’d still want to use it sometime. I do think this slightly aggressive tactic, I’m sure they claim otherwise!
Eupolemos 2y ago
We got Copilot for free at work, but I found it to be so annoying I disabled it after a week or so.

thot_experiment 2y ago

If anyone is looking for a free/local alternative Continue + Ollama is acceptable. If you're just doing run of the mill programming it will work well out of the box. I'm glad it's open source so I was able to fix most of the issues I had with it and now my copy is in a great place. The documentation is in places many versions behind the actual code so it can be tough to figure out how to set things up when you're venturing off the beaten path. That all being said the granularity of control you have when using local models leads to an experience that's far better than Cursor/Copilot, I really enjoy that it reads my mind a lot of the time now (because I have prompt engineered it to know how I think). Ultimately, isn't this just the way of things? https://thot-experiment.github.io/forever-problems/?set%20up%20my%20dev%20environment https://thot-experiment.github.io/forever-problems/?set%20up...

TacticalCoder 2y ago
On what kind of hardware/GPU are you running that locally?
- deathtrader666 2y ago
  M1 MacBook Pro is sufficient for a Qwen model.
  - indigodaddy 2y ago
    with how much ram though?
    - int_19h 2y ago
      For Qwen-32B, 32Gb should be quite sufficient to run it at 4-bit quantization with full context.
      - indigodaddy 2y ago
        Thanks, I need to figure out something to run on M4 Mac Mini standard 16G

ChrisArchitect 2y ago

Link should be announcement post: Announcing 150M developers and a new free tier for GitHub Copilot in VS Code https://github.blog/news-insights/product-news/github-copilot-in-vscode-free/ https://github.blog/news-insights/product-news/github-copilo...

ProfessorZoom 2y ago

Started using Supermaven since it was free and Copilot wasn't, but I stayed because it's faster and uses recent diffs to aid in generation

bugglebeetle 2y ago

Copilot in VSCode is so far behind Windsurf, not terribly excited about this and still happy to pay for a Codeium pro account. My only fear is someone buying them and screwing up model access, but maybe it’s fine if that is Anthropic. GPT-4 is terrible at coding and o-1 isn’t tell tiene for practical use.

skybrian 2y ago
For anyone else who never heard of Windsurf, it seems this was announced a month ago: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=42127882 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=42127882
- vazma 2y ago
  Tried windsurf and the beginning was amazing, last few days I start realizing that is getting annoyingly stupid and slow. Open reddit and realized lots of people had the same issue with a lot of wild theories about it. I stopped my subscription and I am considering trying cursor just to compare. Tldr;×trying an agent Ai coding assistant was amazing and I think I will never go back!
  - bugglebeetle 2y ago
    They use a lot of custom models and logic chaining, so I think this is more search and retrieval optimization or similar problems, I guess maybe some Anthropic API issues as well. I’ve seen the variance too and was wondering if was load related. Overall, still loving it, even if there’s some bleeding edge bumpiness.
fuzzythinker 2y ago
Concur. Dropped Copilot for Cursor and then tried Windsurf. Windsurf is the keeper for me.
- thomasfromcdnjs 2y ago
  This is me too. Windsurf feels perfect right now.

bbbruno222 2y ago

Before GitHub Copilot was a paid feature. This only shows to the Cursor team that they are going to the right direction. The slow elephant enterprise GitHub will never be as good/fast as Cursor, they had their chance but they have joined the party of "keeping the devs under our umbrella with free features" too late.

layer8 2y ago
If Cursor remains successful, they’re likely to turn into a slow elephant enterprise as well eventually. That’s rather the rule than the exception, unfortunately.
- bbkane 2y ago
  Are there any exceptions? I feel like small companies can be nimble because they don't have as many customers to lose, but larger orgs need to worry much more about existing customers: scale, migrations, backwards compatibility, legal compliance, supply chains...

forty 2y ago

Is there any solution that is 1- fully local 2- open source 3- fast on CPU only 4- provide reasonable good results for smart auto complete ? I don't want my work to depend on proprietary or even worse, online, software. We (software engineer) got lucky that all the good tools are free software and I feel we have a collective interest in making sure it stays that way (unless we want to be like farmers having to pay Monsanto tax for just being able to work because we don't know how to work differently anymore)

Sohcahtoa82 2y ago
> 3- fast on CPU only Unless you've got a CPU with AI-specific accelerators and unified memory, I doubt you're going to find that. I can't imagine any model under 7B parameters is useful, and even with dual-channel DDR5-6400 RAM (Which I think is 102 GB/s?) and 8-bit quantization, you could only generate 15 tokens/sec, and that's assuming your CPU can actually process that fast. Your memory bandwidth could easily be the bottleneck. EDIT: If I have something wrong, I'd rather be corrected so I'm not spreading incorrect information, rather than being silently downvoted.
- thot_experiment 2y ago
  deepseek-1b, qwen2.5-coder:1.5b, and starcoder2-3b are all pretty fast on cpu due to their small size, you're not going to be able to have conversations with them or ask them to perform transformations on your code but autocomplete should work well
  - ghthor 2y ago
    Starcoder3B works great in my second hand rtx2080. Can’t run 7B, just a hair too little Ram, but still great completions
    - thot_experiment 2y ago
      You should definitely be able to run 7B at q6_k and that might be outperformed by 15b w/ a sub 4bpw imatrix quant, iQ3_M should fit into your vram. (i personally wouldn't bother with sub 4bpw quants on models < ~70b parameters) Though if it all works great for you then no reason to mess with it, but if you want to tinker you can absolutely run larger models at smaller quant sizes, q6_k is basically indistinguishable from fp16 so there's no real downside.

beepbooptheory 2y ago

Working with people who use this stuff a lot has made my current job just so so much harder in every way its astonishing. I used to solve problems with code, now I feel like hermeneut or dream analyzer: absent of human intention, codebases quickly become these weird piles of different idioms, even without considering the hallucinations (those have definitely cost me a few sleepless nights now either way). But I am just venting. All of yall have clearly won, I get it. I am just grateful I have lived a full life doing other things other than computers, so this all isn't too sad other than the prospect of being poor again. I will always have my beautiful emacs and I will always be hacking. I will always have my Stallman, my Knuth, my Andy Wingo, my SICP. I feel it is accomplishment enough to have progressed in this career as I have, especially as a self taught developer. But I kinda want to let yall deal with slop now, you really seem to like it! Maybe I'll get another degree now, or just make some silly music and video games again. It's liberating just thinking about being free from this "new way" we work now. Thanks for all the fish though!

forty 2y ago
Wait a bit, it won't last
- throw234234234 2y ago
  In what way - that those things/people doing that will fail? Or the tooling will get better that this is no longer a problem? Completely different outcomes with very different consequences.
  - forty 2y ago
    I think people will realize those AI are not worth the cost (both money wise and environment wise). Right now money is raining on everything AI, but at some point they will want to have a return and most projects will shut down, and we can move on
    - Breza 2y ago
      I'm inclined to agree with you. There are two directions of pressure. First, the tech just doesn't work as well as it needs to, and it's not clear if that will change in the next decade. Second, the companies are losing money. The investment bet is that the AI companies will make rapid advances in their models such that they'll be able to charge enough to turn a profit before the bubble pops. I'm not convinced.

mistercheph 2y ago

llama3.3:70b-instruct-q4_K_M (~43 GB, 2x 3090/4090 or fast memory cpu inference on e.g. macs) or qwen2.5-coder:32b-instruct-q5_K_M (~23 GB) or gemma2:9b-instruct-q6_K (~7.5 GB) and https://github.com/bernardo-bruning/ollama-copilot https://github.com/bernardo-bruning/ollama-copilot or alternatively: https://github.com/ollama/ollama https://github.com/ollama/ollama + https://github.com/olimorris/codecompanion.nvim https://github.com/olimorris/codecompanion.nvim

TiredOfLife 2y ago
Or just get yourself a cerebras cluster and run full llama-3.1-405B.

sleepybrett 2y ago

'free', you code is the only price they require.

deleted 2y ago
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SirMaster 2y ago

Not for vs2022?

butz 2y ago

Are there any local models that provide only very limited knowledge, e.g. autocomplete and chat for single programming language? Or is my thinking, that such limited model would be smaller and work faster even on CPU, is incorrect?

HyprMusic 2y ago
I believe Jetbrains' built in models work like that but unfortunately they force you to disable any competing AI chat plugins so you lose out on access to Claude etc. if you use them.

richardw 2y ago

I assume the recommendation-edit feedback loop is valuable and so is access to code/text that isn’t on GitHub yet? Email says “GitHub and affiliates may use your data for product improvement.” Access to all the little changes in between commits seems valuable. If you’re looking to compete on access to data I imagine this helps. Experts weigh in pls?

elcapitan 2y ago

Is there some way to check what I currently use? I rarely use chat, so 50 per month probably wouldn't be an issue, but completion has become my main completion tool, not sure if I'd stay under 2000..

ryandrake 2y ago
Came here to ask the same question. I bet I have 2000+ code completions in a single, fevered, Mountain Dew fueled day of coding, which would be my quota for a month of the free tier.
TranquilMarmot 2y ago
Can you see it here? https://github.com/settings/billing/summary https://github.com/settings/billing/summary I have Copilot from an org I'm in so I just see "You are assigned a seat as part of a GitHub Copilot Business subscription"
- elcapitan 2y ago
  No, unfortunately it just tells me that I spent $10. There seem to be usage stats for other pro offers by Github, which I don't use though.

ak_111 2y ago

Anyone tried replit? Is it worth the money with free copilot now from Github?

pestkranker 2y ago

I hope access to Code Review in GitHub will be available to paid users soon! It's going to be a game changer as a first level of code review before real people get involved with the PR.

timrogers 2y ago
I love to hear this as the PM for Copilot code review at GitHub! We’re running a preview of the code review feature right now, and are looking forward to opening it to all paid subscribers soon. If you’d like to try it sooner, I can hook you up - just email my HN username @github.com :)
- pestkranker 2y ago
  I have just sent you an email. Thank you Tim!

igorguerrero 2y ago

I think this is a bad move... I immediately switched, 2000 completions for me (I have it disabled by default on Neovim) is enough, and 50 chats, more than enough I didn't even know they had chat like ChatGPT.

selcuka 2y ago
If you've disabled completions and didn't know about chats, what were you using Copilot for?
- igorguerrero 2y ago
  I have a toggle to enable it back when needed, I found this is way better, for me, to stay focused and make less errors. But I do enable it, for example when I'm coding in a language or project I'm not used to, I'd say I use like 20% of my coding time, but that 20% is useful, it's when google doesn't work for me either...

orra 2y ago

I like the mediocrity of the example they headlined: the user asks for unit tests. Copilot writes only two test cases, so not exactly great coverage. Plus, the test cases uses python's unittest, which isn't as slick as pytest.

SkyPuncher 2y ago
I use Copilot a lot for writing specs. I've come to prefer that it only writes one or two specs to start. It's a good way for me to quickly review it has the structure correct. When it throws too many at me at once, it can be harder to make broad tweaks. As for `pytest`, I just have to remind it I'm using pytest. "Write pytests for this" is sufficient to get it to do what I want.
crucialfelix 2y ago
You can write a prompt stating how tests should be writen in your project. It goes on some .vscode file. It's consulted anytime it's writing a test, even in a conversation. I state where my factory fixtures are to be found.
sionisrecur 2y ago
Well they didn't ask for pytest tests. I wonder if AIs are like bored developers, doing the minimum necessary to complete the task instead of going the extra mile and make things better. Perhaps that will be the differentiator in the future. Or they just need to adjust the pre-prompt.

siilats 2y ago

For JetBrains IDE-s the open source CodeGPT plugin works much better. Many more models to choose from

dr_kiszonka 2y ago

Any mobile devs here using Copilot, Cursor or Supermaven? I am curious if you have any recommendations.

flawn 2y ago
On Mobile, my experience was really poor. It really does not perform for e.g. Flutter. Probably not too much training data on Flutter Code.
maskil 2y ago
I found that AI models really have a hard time with Android native, kept reverting to the latest libraries which don't have broad support. I had more success with Flutter but still needs a decent amount of course correction.

blackeyeblitzar 2y ago

Microsoft giving away a losing product for free is the exact kind of thing that proves they’re too big. This is just a desperate move to suck oxygen away from startups in this same space that compete with them. We need new antitrust laws ASAP.

swah 2y ago
Couldn't they acquire for a cool 100 M or something? Its a VSCode fork!

CliveBloomers 2y ago

So you don't have to pay the yearly fee? Also did anyone get the email and Outlook picked up the link as harmful?

sitkack 2y ago

They need more training data.

throw234234234 2y ago
That was my first thought too. The Github Copilot CEO recently said in no uncertain words he wants to make everyone a dev - "a billion developers". Of course this is code for make current dev's redundant IMO similar to how everyone can type these days too making typists redundant. The MBA types really really want this outcome for all intellectual work. I can imagine that good enterprise/business level training data (the layer above the open source widgets we compose) is not as easy coming on the internet as the open source libraries themselves are. But through their free tool they would get access to this especially from small scrappy startup's that will want to save costs. Seeing some startup's go from zero to next big thing on Copilot will be great training data.

limerickwin 2y ago

hm.. it seems like I won't use this service for a while as I got the following error message while starting IntelliJ today: You've reached your monthly code completion limit. Upgrade your plan to Copilot Pro (30-day Free Trial) or wait until -4712-01-01 for your limit to reset to continue coding with GitHub Copilot.

mongol 2y ago
Wow 4712 BCE was when the pyramids were new and shiny. Just kidding, it turns out it was the first Julian day. Got some help here: January 1, 4713 BCE marks the beginning of the Julian Day count. This system was introduced by Joseph Scaliger in 1583 CE. Scaliger selected 4713 BCE as the starting point because it is the nearest date where three cycles—solar, lunar, and Roman indiction—coincide. These cycles are: The 28-year solar cycle. The 19-year Metonic lunar cycle. The 15-year Roman indiction cycle.

huqedato 2y ago

I switched to Codeium free tier three months ago and never looked back to Copilot since then. Copilot is a mess on Julia and Elixir/Erlang code.

shlomo_z 2y ago
Yeah, codeium free tier blows copilot paid out of water
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TonyTrapp 2y ago

They appear to be SO excited about their new feature that they sent an email about it to every single email address associated with my Github accounts. Which is quite a few addresses that have been used for git commits over the years.

hug 2y ago
Does that include the email addresses configured in your ~/.gitconfig? If so, I apologise to fart@butts.com.
- TonyTrapp 2y ago
  Only if you have manually associated them with your Github account so that they show up as "your" commits, as far as I'm aware (although I'm not sure how deep Github's integration with desktop tools reaches these days)
sexy_seedbox 2y ago
But are you Stack Overflow excited?!
- sapphire42 2y ago
  This should not be downvoted :) lighten up you guys!
az226 2y ago
GitHub is scared. It’s losing mind share with startups who are leapfrogging them, Cursor, Poolside, Augment, Cognition, Codeium.

TuringNYC 2y ago

The real cost is that society at large is no longer contributing to the StackOverflow, so problems and solutions are all now stored in proprietary databases (which granted SO also was) but also now stored in an invisible proprietary database

daemin 2y ago
The StackOverflow database was open source for a while, but I haven't checked for a data dump since the new management came in.
- TuringNYC 2y ago
  True, may not be open source, but it is still viewable. Best for Society: Open Source <-- Where SO was Medium for Society: Proprietary, but openly browsable <-- Where SO is Worst for Society: Proprietary, not browsable <-- LLM-based code assist tools
  - Wowfunhappy 2y ago
    ...where would you classify Llama in here? That's not really "open source" despite what Facebook calls it, but I wouldn't call it proprietary, anyone can download and use the whole thing locally.
    - pabs3 2y ago
      "public weights"?
      - _heimdall 2y ago
        Can those weights be interpreted by anyone viewing them? If not, it seems like publicly available, obfuscated code at best.
        fragmede 2y ago

toisanji 2y ago

I have been using Cursor, but I am a vim user at heart. What is the best plugin I can use that gives us the power of AI coding, but for vim? Every time I look, the plugins seem to be far behind Cursor.

deleted 2y ago
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finder83 2y ago
https://github.com/github/copilot.vim https://github.com/github/copilot.vim works pretty well for inline autocompletion https://github.com/CopilotC-Nvim/CopilotChat.nvim https://github.com/CopilotC-Nvim/CopilotChat.nvim is the best I've found for the chat-type interaction. It lets you choose models/etc. It's still not quite as nice as cursor, but decent enough that I enjoy using them
strangelove026 2y ago
I've been slightly curious about Avante, but I switched to vim about a year ago and still have other things I'm working on first. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4kzSV2xctjc https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4kzSV2xctjc
azemetre 2y ago
Not vim, but neovim: https://github.com/olimorris/codecompanion.nvim https://github.com/olimorris/codecompanion.nvim Haven't used it yet but it supports many models.

bionhoward 2y ago

Microsoft would need to pay me to use Copilot. Seems like a major scam for them to learn from our code and then tell us we can’t use it to make our own competing AI systems. “Limits on use of data from the AI Services. You may not use the AI services, or data from the AI services, to create, train, or improve (directly or indirectly) any other AI service.” From https://www.microsoft.com/en/servicesagreement#13r_AIServices https://www.microsoft.com/en/servicesagreement#13r_AIService... TODAY — the ridiculous focus on AI over core business at github is the number one thing likely to kill the platform. They are coasting on network effects

w_for_wumbo 2y ago
"You may not use the AI services, or data from the AI services, to create, train, or improve (directly or indirectly) any other AI service" - It's not like anyone chose to indirectly train these existing systems - this means that anything published online that could be scraped and used to train something is not allowed right?
- codebje 2y ago
  It wouldn't be an online service's T&C document if it didn't include at least one vague, threatening, unworkable, and unenforceable condition. The useless but true answer is nobody knows what's allowed and what isn't, until it's tested in court. Practically (not being a lawyer, though) I suspect that the clause will never be pursued on its own, because it's bullshit and everyone involved knows it is so. In your scenario, though, assuming you publish in a way that's not overtly and primarily meant for AI training, I think the "use" of data isn't yours and would be hard to argue as violating the terms of the agreement. Of course we might take it to the absurd end of this line of reasoning and demand that any code base that Copilot was involved in should have a license term preventing the training of any other AI in it, and we wind up in a place where all AIs are trained on source material they're explicitly licensed not to be trained on, or trained only on a mostly static set of "pre-AI" publications. Daft stuff.
throwaway888abc 2y ago
psssst *it's a secret If You're Not Paying For It, You Become The Product (2012) https://www.forbes.com/sites/marketshare/2012/03/05/if-youre-not-paying-for-it-you-become-the-product/ https://www.forbes.com/sites/marketshare/2012/03/05/if-youre...

devops000 2y ago

What if I have already paid the annual plan?

Jgrubb 2y ago
The you are already a paying customer.

Brian_K_White 2y ago

It's like the U2 album on everyone's iphone. It's a Homer bowling ball.

hankchinaski 2y ago

Copilot is totally useless.

bravetraveler 2y ago

Hopefully the people championing this at work will stop trying to get me to switch

croemer 2y ago

The free version has severe usage limits: "Includes up to 2,000 completions and 50 chat requests per month." More of a 7d trial that resets every month.

deleted 2y ago

[deleted]

jusonchan81 2y ago

Could this be a strategy to get access to more code than what is available in just Github? More training data means better models I assume.

dsp_person 2y ago
I just enabled copilot and I see in the settings this is checked by default https://github.com/settings/copilot https://github.com/settings/copilot > - [x] Allow GitHub to use my code snippets from the code editor for product improvements > > Allow GitHub, its affiliates and third parties to use my code snippets to research and improve GitHub Copilot suggestions, related models and product features. More information in About GitHub Copilot privacy. Should we still be concerned if opting out?
- bravetraveler 2y ago
  It's been my experience that, with time, opt-outs from SaaS multiply. People opt out, some PM or whoever decides they need 'metrics' (numbers to spin)... and more categories or qualifications are summarily added. Starting the cycle again. I assume they'll send a privacy policy update in at most six months. I wouldn't call it concerning. Routine. I won't participate, that's for sure.

deleted 2y ago

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KuriousCat 2y ago

Is there something like a startpage that can act as intermediary and make the queries and responses public? And searchable?

solarkraft 2y ago

I have already replaced Copilot with continue.dev+qwen2.5-coder:1.5b on Ollama and don't see myself coming back. For the last year Copilot completions have been slow, unreliable and just bad, coming in at random moments, messing up syntax in dumb ways, being slow and sometimes not showing up at all. It has been painfully bad even though it used to be good. Maybe it's since they switched from Codex to the general GPTs ...

euoia 2y ago
Do you have a guide for how to set this up? I am also pretty dissatisfied with Copilot completions.
- huijzer 2y ago
  Probably via Tabby (https://www.tabbyml.com/ https://www.tabbyml.com/)
  - ghthor 2y ago
    Tabby is great! Though they broke the vim plugin going for lsp support, but older version still works fine.
- nbbaier 2y ago
  Also interested !
- mfkp 2y ago
  looks like the parent comment hints at https://docs.continue.dev/chat/model-setup#local-offline-experience https://docs.continue.dev/chat/model-setup#local-offline-exp... (Assuming your computer has the specs necessary to run ollama)
  - maeil 2y ago
    That page is about chat while the parent comment seems to be about completions, that's the codepilot feature most of us will be looking to replace/improve on.

solarkraft 2y ago

> Now automatically integrated into VS Code Congratulations to Microsoft for owning enough of the stack to make doing this possible.

chmod775 2y ago

Hilarious. The code "fix" Copilot suggests in their example[1] is wrong on some many levels. It's trying to use await in something that is not an async function. From the other examples it's clear this is likely React's useEffect. You could not even make that callback an async function if you wanted to - this naive fix for that leads to subtle bugs. And last but not least: The issue here - if there's any - can already be caught by linter rules like no-floating-promises in eslint/by using TypeScript instead. You don't need a shitty AI linter confidently suggesting wrong code. That's how you advertise the product? I'm guessing competent coders at GitHub have already been replaced by juniors+copilot. [1] https://i.imgur.com/FHnsqyP.png https://i.imgur.com/FHnsqyP.png

TranquilMarmot 2y ago
> been replaced by juniors+copilot More likely replaced by seniors who forgot how to write code by hand because they're relying so much on AI. I don't think juniors are a thing anymore.
soco 2y ago
I've read enthusiastic reports about Cursor but my very short trial experience was quite similar to yours: refactoring by duplicating code, mixing up cases, server connection errors, to the point where I just gave up after one day. It might be me of course and my poor prompting skills but hey if it offers me "rename symbol" I kinda expect it to rename the symbol AND its occurences. Oh well. I'll check again in a year or something.
- heeton 2y ago
  I personally love Cursor but never using prompts. I just use it's auto-complete and smart-tab features it saves me a tonne of manual typing. (I type fast, yet now find switching to a "manual" editor annoyingly slow). I don't let it write blocks of code, but usually I'm ~5 keystrokes into a line change or addition and it can complete the rest. I also use a text-file todo in the same project to help it with context of what I'm trying to do.
  - 2y ago

gloosx 2y ago

>Includes up to 2,000 completions and 50 chat requests per month. Never used Copilot or any AI assisting tool, is this a lot or is it as free as cheese in a mousetrap?

az226 2y ago
Mousetrap.
TranquilMarmot 2y ago
The org I work for pays for Copilot so I'm used to using it. It would probably take me 10 days to use up 50 chats? 5 a day seems about right. I have NO idea how many completions I use.

choina 2y ago

[flagged]

choina 2y ago
Looks like Microsofties are sensitive birches. Why would you downvote the truth?

PeterStuer 2y ago

Free for upto: - 50 chats - 2.000 code completions per month. After that it is starting from 10$/month.

t_believ-er873 2y ago

Good news

shadavias983 2y ago

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shadavias983 2y ago

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ribadeo 2y ago

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anonymous31415 2y ago

How do you disable it again? You can't! Once you pressed "Start using Copilot" the copilot menu shows up on all repositories within GitHub.com for careless or uninformed users to leak proprietary code to their training set.

herigutawan 2y ago

[flagged]