3 ms·

It's massively cheaper. Copilot charges per request, which with some clever prompting, can lead to huge amounts of work being done at fractions of the cost of C

It's massively cheaper. Copilot charges per request, which with some clever prompting, can lead to huge amounts of work being done at fractions of the cost of Claude Code. Millions of tokens for mere pennies. MS must be taking a huge hit somewhere, because I'm probably getting 10-20x my value out of GH relative to CC. I am not locked in to Anthropic, either. I can easily switch between GPT and Gemini models based on how I think each would perform in various scenarios. That's a big win. I use a lot of design with Opus, implement with GPT 5.4. Also, Github Copilot CLI is pretty much at feature parity (for the stuff that matters) with Claude Code. Using both at work and home, I don't think there's much difference in features between the two. Maybe I'm not a super power user, and just a regular dumb user, but GH doesn't seem buggy and everything I think I'd want to do with CC I can do with GH.

maille 6mo ago
How can I learn that clever prompting?
- esafak 6mo ago
  Try to pack as much clear work into your prompt as you can so you don't go back and forth.
  - chatmasta 6mo ago
    Do hacks like “read prompt.md, and follow its instructions. When you’re done, read it again and follow its instructions.” And then you have some background process appending to the file to keep it warm and you just keep writing there?
    - deleted 6mo ago
      [deleted]
    - esafak 6mo ago
      You could do that. I was just trying to say that if you make your original prompt complete enough, and you have well-defined success criteria, you can tell it to keep going until they are met.
      - Cerium 6mo ago
        Agreed - my experience mirrors this. > "Fix the following compile errors" -> one shot try and stops. > "Fix the following compile errors. When done, test your work and continue iterating until build passes without error" -> same cost but it gets the job done.
    - cylemons 6mo ago
      There is a limit on how much copilot can do in one request, pretty generous but after some time vscode will say "this request is taking very long, do you want to continue" and that would count as a seperate request
      - ValentineC 6mo ago
        > but after some time vscode will say "this request is taking very long, do you want to continue" and that would count as a seperate request I don't think that's true. In VS Code, that's also configurable via the chat.agent.maxRequests setting. There was absurd latency in the Copilot Opus 4.6 model on 1st and 2nd April which led to lots of my requests timing out with nothing to show though.
        cylemons 6mo ago
        > chat.agent.maxRequests "Maximum number of requests that copilot can make using agents" I don't get how this setting is relevant?
amy1173 6mo ago
I'm spending a literal fortune on CC - we also have GH Copilot but the devs imply that CC is better? Will the Github Copilot let us access skills and agent frameworks in CC?
- mynameisvlad 6mo ago
  Devs say a lot of uninformed things. With a heavy predisposition to hating the "legacy" monoliths that are Microsoft and by association GitHub. Yes, Copilot supports skills. Practically all agents support very similar feature sets or are actively building up parity support if not already there. The only real difference between systems is the prompt and payment method. Copilot even allows you to use Anthropic's own skills repository: https://github.com/anthropics/skills https://github.com/anthropics/skills https://docs.github.com/en/copilot/concepts/agents/about-agent-skills https://docs.github.com/en/copilot/concepts/agents/about-age... details the support for skills. https://docs.github.com/en/copilot/concepts/agents/copilot-cli/comparing-cli-features https://docs.github.com/en/copilot/concepts/agents/copilot-c... details the CLI tool in general, which seems more or less on par with Claude Code's.
  - deleted 6mo ago
    [deleted]
  - walthamstow 6mo ago
    It's a bit rich to go around calling people uninformed because they prefer one harness to another, particularly when you are recommending GHC as comparable to CC.
    - nfg 6mo ago
      Have you used the gh copilot cli? What would stand out most to you as gaps right now?
      - walthamstow 6mo ago
        IME is is less capable of performing complex work, more frequently goes down blind alleys and needs correcting, that kind of thing. It's night and day vs CC.

maille 6mo ago

How can I learn that clever prompting?

esafak 6mo ago
Try to pack as much clear work into your prompt as you can so you don't go back and forth.
- chatmasta 6mo ago
  Do hacks like “read prompt.md, and follow its instructions. When you’re done, read it again and follow its instructions.” And then you have some background process appending to the file to keep it warm and you just keep writing there?
  - deleted 6mo ago
    [deleted]
  - esafak 6mo ago
    You could do that. I was just trying to say that if you make your original prompt complete enough, and you have well-defined success criteria, you can tell it to keep going until they are met.
    - Cerium 6mo ago
      Agreed - my experience mirrors this. > "Fix the following compile errors" -> one shot try and stops. > "Fix the following compile errors. When done, test your work and continue iterating until build passes without error" -> same cost but it gets the job done.
  - cylemons 6mo ago
    There is a limit on how much copilot can do in one request, pretty generous but after some time vscode will say "this request is taking very long, do you want to continue" and that would count as a seperate request
    - ValentineC 6mo ago
      > but after some time vscode will say "this request is taking very long, do you want to continue" and that would count as a seperate request I don't think that's true. In VS Code, that's also configurable via the chat.agent.maxRequests setting. There was absurd latency in the Copilot Opus 4.6 model on 1st and 2nd April which led to lots of my requests timing out with nothing to show though.
      - cylemons 6mo ago
        > chat.agent.maxRequests "Maximum number of requests that copilot can make using agents" I don't get how this setting is relevant?

amy1173 6mo ago

I'm spending a literal fortune on CC - we also have GH Copilot but the devs imply that CC is better? Will the Github Copilot let us access skills and agent frameworks in CC?

mynameisvlad 6mo ago
Devs say a lot of uninformed things. With a heavy predisposition to hating the "legacy" monoliths that are Microsoft and by association GitHub. Yes, Copilot supports skills. Practically all agents support very similar feature sets or are actively building up parity support if not already there. The only real difference between systems is the prompt and payment method. Copilot even allows you to use Anthropic's own skills repository: https://github.com/anthropics/skills https://github.com/anthropics/skills https://docs.github.com/en/copilot/concepts/agents/about-agent-skills https://docs.github.com/en/copilot/concepts/agents/about-age... details the support for skills. https://docs.github.com/en/copilot/concepts/agents/copilot-cli/comparing-cli-features https://docs.github.com/en/copilot/concepts/agents/copilot-c... details the CLI tool in general, which seems more or less on par with Claude Code's.
- deleted 6mo ago
  [deleted]
- walthamstow 6mo ago
  It's a bit rich to go around calling people uninformed because they prefer one harness to another, particularly when you are recommending GHC as comparable to CC.
  - nfg 6mo ago
    Have you used the gh copilot cli? What would stand out most to you as gaps right now?
    - walthamstow 6mo ago
      IME is is less capable of performing complex work, more frequently goes down blind alleys and needs correcting, that kind of thing. It's night and day vs CC.