JetBrains AI Assistant vs GitHub Copilot (2026)

JetBrains AI Assistant

by JetBrains

GitHub Copilot

by GitHub (Microsoft)

Pros

• ✓Built into eleven JetBrains IDEs plus Android Studio and ReSharper, with code completion from JetBrains' own Mellum model that does not use AI Credits, and a public preview extension for Visual Studio Code.
• ✓Several coding agents in one chat: JetBrains' own Junie, plus Claude Agent, Codex and GitHub Copilot, and any ACP-compatible agent from the registry, with MCP support in both directions.
• ✓Cloud models from OpenAI, Anthropic, Google and xAI through JetBrains AI, bring-your-own-key for OpenAI and Anthropic, and local models through Ollama or LM Studio.

Limitations

• ⚠AI Free is not available in IntelliJ IDEA without an Ultimate subscription, PyCharm without a Pro subscription, or Android Studio, and it does not include next edit suggestions.
• ⚠Cloud AI features pause when the included credits run out until the quota renews after 30 days or credits are topped up, and unused included credits do not roll over.
• ⚠SSO and SCIM, AI audit logs, organization-wide provider keys and on-premises deployment require AI Enterprise at $60 per user per month billed annually, sold through a demo request.

Pros

• ✓Available as a plugin across VS Code, JetBrains, Neovim, Xcode, Eclipse, Visual Studio, Raycast, Zed and SQL Server Management Studio, so teams keep their existing editor.
• ✓Free tier with 2,000 completions a month and no credit card, plus a free plan for eligible students, so the product can be trialed before any spend.
• ✓GitHub publishes an official open-source MCP server, hosted remotely or run locally, so Copilot both consumes external tools and exposes GitHub context to other AI clients.

Limitations

• ⚠AI Credit metering means agent mode, code review and chat draw down a dollar-denominated allowance, and GitHub states the flex portion of that allowance may change over time, so the effective monthly budget is not fixed.
• ⚠IP indemnity covers unmodified suggestions only and requires the duplicate detection filter to be switched on, so the protection depends on a setting an administrator has to enable.
• ⚠Organization controls, pooled credits, usage metrics and SAML SSO require Business at $19 per user per month or above.