Head-to-head · profiles checked Sep 30, 2026
Pick GitHub Copilot if you write code every day; pick Google Gemini for one assistant across chat, documents, images and Google apps. Google Gemini and GitHub Copilot both have a $0 plan. Gemini paid plans start at $4.99/month (Google AI Plus) and Copilot Pro at $10/month. Copilot is free for verified students. We ran no benchmark.
We based this comparison on our verified profiles of both tools, checked on 2026-09-30 against official pages, with no third-party benchmarks and no vendor payments.
These two are built for different jobs. Google Gemini is a general-purpose assistant for chat, long documents, images, Deep Research and Google apps, with a $0 tier and paid plans from $4.99/month. GitHub Copilot is a coding assistant for IDEs, GitHub.com and the CLI, with a free plan and paid plans from $10/month. Pick Gemini if you live in Google accounts; pick Copilot if most of your work is writing and reviewing code on GitHub.
Based on our verified profiles of Google Gemini and GitHub Copilot, both checked on 2026-09-30 against official pricing, documentation and policy pages.
If you only want the answer, this is the table. Everything below is the evidence from the two documented profiles.
| You want to | Use | Why |
|---|---|---|
| Write code in my editor | GitHub Copilot | Copilot offers inline completions in VS Code, JetBrains, Visual Studio, Xcode, Eclipse and Neovim |
| Get a pull request opened for a GitHub issue | GitHub Copilot | The Copilot cloud agent researches a repository and can open pull requests |
| Review code changes before a human does | GitHub Copilot | Copilot code review covers pull requests and editor diffs on paid plans |
| Ask quick coding questions in a chat | Either | Gemini lists coding assistance as a use case; Copilot Chat works in IDEs and on GitHub.com |
| Summarize a long document | Google Gemini | Gemini lists a 1M-token context on Google AI Pro and Ultra |
| Research a topic across many web sources | Google Gemini | Gemini includes Deep Research reports on every plan |
| Generate or edit images | Google Gemini | Image generation and editing are included in the Gemini free plan |
| Work inside Gmail, Docs and Chrome | Google Gemini | Gemini connects to Gmail, Drive, Calendar, YouTube and Chrome; Gemini in Gmail starts at AI Plus |
| Talk to an assistant by voice | Google Gemini | Gemini Live offers real-time voice conversation on all plans |
| Run an AI assistant from the terminal | GitHub Copilot | Copilot CLI is an interactive and programmatic terminal agent on all plans |
| Plan | Tool | Price | Limits |
|---|---|---|---|
| Free | Google Gemini | $0 | Varying access to 3.1 Pro; Standard compute-based usage limits; refresh every 5 hours until weekly limit; 32k token context window; Up to 10 files per prompt; video up to 5 min total, audio up to 10 min total; 15 GB cloud storage |
| Google AI Plus | Google Gemini | $4.99/mo | 2x higher usage limits than Free; 400 GB cloud storage; Available in more than 160 countries |
| Google AI Pro | Google Gemini | $19.99/mo | 4x higher usage limits than Free; 1 million token context window; Video upload up to 1 hour, audio up to 3 hours total; 5 TB cloud storage; Available in more than 150 countries |
| Google AI Ultra (5x) | Google Gemini | $99.99/mo | 5x higher usage limits vs AI Pro; Cloud storage starting at 20 TB; Available in more than 150 countries; some features select countries only |
| Gemini Enterprise Business | Google Gemini | $21/seat/mo | Up to 300 seats; 25 GiB storage and data indexing per seat (pooled) |
| Gemini Developer API Free | Google Gemini | $0 | Limited access to certain models; Lower rate limits (Free usage tier); Content used to improve Google products; Grounding with Google Search not available on free tier; 18+ only |
| Copilot Free | GitHub Copilot | $0 | 2,000 completions per month; Limited chat and agent usage (allowance of GitHub AI Credits); Auto model selection only; Excludes third-party agents; Not available to users with an org-assigned seat or a managed user account |
| Copilot Student | GitHub Copilot | $0 | Verified students only; Allowance of AI credits; Auto model selection only |
| Copilot Pro | GitHub Copilot | $10/mo | Base 1,000 AI credits + 500 flex allotment = 1,500 total monthly AI credits ($15 value); Flex allotments may change over time; Unused credits do not carry over |
| Copilot Pro+ | GitHub Copilot | $39/mo | Base 3,900 AI credits + 3,100 flex = 7,000 total monthly AI credits ($70 value); Flex allotments may change over time |
| Copilot Business | GitHub Copilot | $19/seat/mo | 1,900 AI credits per user per month, pooled enterprise-wide; Usage beyond the pool charged at $0.01 per AI credit if admins allow paid usage; Homepage notes new sign-ups are being enabled gradually |
| Copilot Enterprise | GitHub Copilot | $39/seat/mo | 3,900 AI credits per user per month, pooled; Requires GitHub Enterprise Cloud; Contact sales |
USD as published on each vendor's pricing page, checked Sep 30, 2026. Google Gemini pricing in full · GitHub Copilot pricing in full
| Google Gemini | GitHub Copilot | |
|---|---|---|
| Messages / rate limits | Compute-based limits that refresh every 5 hours up to a weekly cap; Plus 2x, Pro 4x Free, Ultra 5x or 20x Pro | Monthly AI credits: Free limited, Pro 1,500, Pro+ 7,000, Max 20,000, Business 1,900 per user, Enterprise 3,900 per user |
| Context / file size | Free 32k tokens; Google AI Pro and Ultra 1M tokens; up to 10 files per prompt | Not stated |
| Seats / team | Gemini Enterprise Business up to 300 seats; Standard / Plus unlimited seats | Business and Enterprise add seat management, policies, budgets and audit logs |
| Completions | Not stated | Free 2,000 per month; unlimited on paid plans |
| Feature | Google Gemini | GitHub Copilot |
|---|---|---|
| Image generation | Yes | Not stated |
| Voice | Yes | Not stated |
| File upload | Yes | Not stated |
| Web search | Yes | Not stated |
| Agents / tools | Yes | Yes |
| API | Yes | No |
| Mobile apps | Yes | Yes |
| IDE integration | Not stated | Yes |
| Google Gemini | GitHub Copilot | |
|---|---|---|
| Training on your data | Personal accounts with Keep Activity on: used to train models. API paid tier and Gemini Enterprise: not used | Individual plans: may be used unless you opt out. Business and Enterprise: not used |
| Retention | Default auto-delete after 18 months; human-reviewed chats kept up to 3 years | Business and Enterprise IDE chat and completions: engagement data kept two years |
| Business controls | Gemini Enterprise: no training or ads use; Standard / Plus adds VPC-SC and customer-managed keys | Content exclusion, public code filter, audit logs, model and feature policies, IP indemnity |
Taken from each vendor's published policy pages at the time of our check. Policies change; the source links are at the bottom.
Google's multimodal AI assistant, available free with higher limits through Google AI subscriptions.
Free stops at: Varying access to 3.1 Pro, Standard compute-based usage limits; refresh every 5 hours until weekly limit
Verified gemini.google.com (opens Google Gemini website in a new tab)
Free · paid from $4.99/mo US · checked Sep 30
AI coding assistant from GitHub offering code completions, chat and agent features in editors, the terminal and GitHub.
Free stops at: 2,000 completions per month, Limited chat and agent usage (allowance of GitHub AI Credits)
Verified github.com (opens GitHub Copilot website in a new tab)
Free · paid from $10/mo US · checked Sep 30
GitHub Copilot is built for coding: inline completions, chat, agent mode and a CLI inside your IDE and on GitHub. Gemini lists coding assistance as one use case among many, so it suits occasional code questions better than daily editor work.
Gemini starts lower: Google AI Plus is $4.99/month against $10/month for Copilot Pro. Both have a $0 plan, and Copilot is also free for verified students. Gemini paid plans bundle Google cloud storage, such as 5 TB on AI Pro.
Yes, on some plans of Google Gemini and GitHub Copilot. Gemini personal accounts with Keep Activity on are used for training. Copilot individual plans may use prompts and snippets unless you opt out. Copilot Business and Enterprise, and Gemini Enterprise, are not used for training.
Gemini has a separate Gemini Developer API with a free tier and a paid pay-as-you-go tier. Our Copilot profile lists no API in its plans.
Only official vendor pages. No third-party benchmarks, forum threads or press were used. How we review.
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