Claude Code vs GitHub Copilot

On the sticker Copilot is the cheaper product - Free, then Pro at $10 a month, Pro+ at $39 and Max at $100, with Business at $19 and Enterprise at $39 per seat, against Claude Pro at $20 a month or Max from $100 - but the comparison leaks, because GitHub lists third-party agents including Claude Code among the things a Copilot Pro seat gets you. Copilot is partly a distribution channel for the tool it is being compared against. The real difference is shape. Copilot is completion-first: paid tiers include unlimited code completion and next edit suggestions, with chat and agent work metered separately, and its model menu widens as you go up the tiers, reaching premium models including Opus at Pro+. Claude Code is agent-first and has no completion product at all; it reads the codebase, edits files and runs commands, and it is Claude only. Two practical notes. Copilot has a real free tier at 2,000 completions a month while the free Claude plan does not include Claude Code at all. And GitHub's marketing and documentation pages express the included allowances in different units, so treat any specific credit figure cautiously and check your own usage page.