Compare GitHub Copilot and Windsurf free tiers side by side. Pricing, limits, change history, and risk assessment for developers.

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GitHub Copilot vs Windsurf

Side-by-side free tier comparison. Data verified through 2026-07-10.

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Verdict

Both GitHub Copilot and Windsurf offer free tiers. GitHub Copilot provides "Free" while Windsurf offers "Free".

GitHub Copilot profile → Windsurf profile →

GitHub Copilot caution discovered 2026-08-28 restructured

CategoryAI Coding
TierFree
Verified2026-07-10
Changes7 recorded
AI coding assistant by GitHub/Microsoft. Works in VS Code/JetBrains/GitHub.com. Copilot Free: 2,000 completions/month, an allowance of GitHub AI Credits, limited agents, auto model selection only. Copilot Student is free to verified students. Pro $10/mo (base 1,000 AI credits), Pro+ $39/mo (3,900), Max $100/mo (10,000), Business $19/granted seat/mo (1,900 per user), Enterprise $39/granted seat/mo (3,900 per user). Usage beyond the allowance is billed at $0.01/AI credit; code completions and next edit suggestions are unlimited on paid plans and not billed in credits. The April 2026 pause on new Pro, Pro+ and Student signups has been lifted — all individual plans accept new signups today. New self-serve purchase of Copilot Business and Copilot Enterprise remains paused (2026-04-22), with GitHub saying sign-ups reopen soon for card and PayPal customers.

Windsurf caution 2026-04-13 restructured

CategoryAI Coding
TierFree
Verified2026-06-25
Changes3 recorded
AI-powered IDE by Codeium (formerly Codeium Editor). Free tier: limited daily quotas for Cascade AI flows, code completions, AI chat (credit system replaced by quotas Mar 2026). Pro $20/mo, Teams $40/mo, Max $200/mo. SWE-1.5 Fast Agent model for faster iteration. Grandfathered Pro subscribers keep $15/mo indefinitely. All tiers include premium models

Pricing Change History

GitHub Copilot

restructured discovered 2026-08-28 · effective date unknown high impact
The free tier still exists with 2,000 completions/month and access to Haiku 4.5, GPT-5 mini, and more. Pro is now $10/month with unlimited code completion and access to Claude Code and Codex. Pro+ is $39/month with access to premium models including Opus. Max is a new tier at $100/month. Business is $19/user/month and Enterprise is $39/user/month. Corrected 2026-09-02: this row previously opened by stating that Pro, Pro+ and Copilot Student signups were paused. GitHub's plans documentation offers all three to new users and the changelog post announcing that pause is marked Retired.
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restricted effective 2026-04-22 high impact
No longer in force (2026-09-01). GitHub paused new self-serve signups for Copilot Business by organizations on GitHub Free and GitHub Team plans, two days after the pause on individual plans. Existing Copilot Business customers were unaffected and could keep adding seats. Copilot Enterprise was not named in the announcement. Reversed: GitHub's 2026-08-28 changelog states "Starting September 1, 2026, GitHub will start reenabling sign-ups for new Copilot Business and Copilot Enterprise customers paying by credit card or PayPal." The pause announcement is marked Retired.
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restricted effective 2026-04-20 high impact
No longer in force (2026-09-02). GitHub paused new signups for Copilot Pro, Pro+, and Copilot Student plans citing infrastructure strain from agentic AI workflows (long-running, parallelized sessions overwhelming capacity). Existing users are unaffected. Free tier signups remain open. Same announcement also removed Claude Opus from Pro (now Pro+ only) and tightened usage limits on individual plans. Reversed: GitHub's changelog post for this change is marked Retired, and its plans documentation offers Copilot Pro, Pro+, Max and Copilot Student to new users, verified 2026-09-02. A separate pause dated 2026-04-22 covered new self-serve signups for Copilot Business by organizations on GitHub Free and GitHub Team plans, and did not cover Copilot Enterprise; GitHub reenabled signups for new Copilot Business and Copilot Enterprise customers paying by credit card or PayPal from 2026-09-01.
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restricted effective 2026-04-10 medium impact
No longer in force (2026-09-02). GitHub paused new Copilot Pro trials due to abuse. Existing trials continued through their term. New users could still subscribe to Pro directly (paid) until the broader April 20 signup pause closed that path too. Resolved: Copilot Pro is open to new subscribers, verified 2026-09-02 against GitHub's plans documentation.
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restricted effective 2026-03-12 medium impact
Student plan now managed under dedicated 'GitHub Copilot Student' plan. Premium models (GPT-5.4, Claude Opus, Claude Sonnet) removed from manual self-selection — still available via Auto mode (system picks the model).
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Showing the 5 most recent of 7 recorded changes for GitHub Copilot.

Windsurf

restructured effective 2026-04-13 medium impact
Windsurf Max plan ($200/mo) confirmed as power-user tier alongside Teams ($40/mo/seat). SWE-1.5 Fast Agent model announced for faster iteration. Full tier lineup: Free (limited daily quotas), Pro ($20/mo), Teams ($40/mo), Max ($200/mo).
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restructured effective 2026-04-01 low impact
Grandfathered Pro pricing ($15/mo) confirmed indefinite. Credit system fully replaced by daily/weekly quotas for all plans.
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restructured effective 2026-03-19 medium impact
Windsurf replaced credits-based pricing with daily/weekly quotas (Mar 19, 2026). New tiers: Pro $20/mo (was $15), Ultimate $40/mo, Team $200/mo/seat. Free tier changed from flexible credits to hard quotas. Existing Pro subscribers grandfathered at $15/mo
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Watch Both Vendors for Pricing Changes

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