I used GitHub Copilot for my VS 2026 development and switched between ChatGPT and Claude. That was before I discovered Claude Code and the Codex app. Copilot was OK for my purposes, and the USD 10 per month fee was enough for my usage.
However, last month they introduced a new pricing model ( I know the old pricing was not sustainable), and my USD 10 was exhausted within days. Because of that, I switched to Claude Code and Codex and have never looked back. Yes, tokens on Claude Code and Codex are subsidized heavily, but let's just enjoy when good things last.
I do feel there is a difference between using Claude via Copilot versus using Claude directly in Claude Code. I'm not sure what Microsoft is doing behind the scenes.
I had a similar experience moving away from Copilot within Zed. Now using the reasonix harness for Deepseek that makes cache hits almost free. And that's with unsubsidized American providers like Digital Ocean or Cloudflare.
You using models released this year? I hear this complaint a lot, and it's often due to using an old model which is not as good at tool calling as newer models.
Finally an alternative to the big dogs that a company can use. People have been asking for a way to run the Chinese models from a trusted provider. Here GitHub delivered!
The performance, if we trust the benchmarks, put it at Sonnet 4.6.
Microsoft needs to offer cheaper option since they change to token based billing. GPT-5.4 used to be x1 for yearly subscriber but now it cost 6x. i run out the premium request for just couple prompts. Github copilot for $10 used to be the best value since you get all the US AI labs model for cheap.
> People have been asking for a way to run the Chinese models from a trusted provider
I'm going to be called a chiller again, but at this point I don't care as it is relevant. Synthetic runs their own models for a reasonable price, GLM5.2 & Kimi K2.7-Code included.
Nice idea. I just asked Haiku to do the same in Claude Chat on iOS: it created a interactive react game, implemented the rules and let it play. Clever move for 1$ input and 5$ output, Anthropic!
when i will be extremely bored, I think I will make two models play chess against each other. I bet there's a chess benchmark / llm tournament already somewhere
Competition in coding models has gotten intense. A year ago it felt like choosing between two options. Now the bigger question is which model to route each task to.
Is GitHub Copilot the best positioned platform for enterprise? They support Claude, GPT, Gemini, and now even open weight models. Larger orgs are paying at API rates anyway so it costs just as much as anywhere else. They have a pretty good agent CLI and SDK, and now a desktop app. They have hosted agents, and you can run their 'Agentic Workflows' in CI.
Has their reputation tanked so much that the alternatives get all the buzz? Or is it that non-enterprise users are priced out by the usage costs, so no free marketing?
Enterprises still have big contracts with github, those companies are imposing tight spending limits now and if the open weight models enable those limits to last a bit longer that's probably quite popular.
It does, but it's very poorly documented and quite unstable (on purpose i think). What the other commenter said about the VSCode BYOK seems to be the more reliable way.
I tried adding a Foundry LLM as Github Copilot custom model and failed miserably. But with VSCode BYOK (and Github Copilot as the interfact) i did get it working, and i can now use Deepseek V4 Flash with Copilot.
However, last month they introduced a new pricing model ( I know the old pricing was not sustainable), and my USD 10 was exhausted within days. Because of that, I switched to Claude Code and Codex and have never looked back. Yes, tokens on Claude Code and Codex are subsidized heavily, but let's just enjoy when good things last.
I do feel there is a difference between using Claude via Copilot versus using Claude directly in Claude Code. I'm not sure what Microsoft is doing behind the scenes.
Anthropic seems to have a modest lead on their harness and models, so it’s a best-of-both-worlds scenario.
> I'm not sure what Microsoft is doing behind the scenes
It’s probably the exact same model, but the tools and the prompts around it are worse, so you get worse results.
I paid $6 yesterday for DeepSeek V4 Flash on OpenRouter. That's like $120 dollar for a month, and it's not even a good model.
The performance, if we trust the benchmarks, put it at Sonnet 4.6.
Let’s see if it’s worth it with GitHubs pricing.
I'm going to be called a chiller again, but at this point I don't care as it is relevant. Synthetic runs their own models for a reasonable price, GLM5.2 & Kimi K2.7-Code included.
Referral link :
https://synthetic.new/?referral=kwjqga9QYoUgpZV
Cache hit (most important): $0.19
Output: $4.00
This is the same as how much Moonshot charges for it, and it puts it at roughly the price of GPT 5.4 mini, not a bad option.
For some context here is a stupid prompt that wastes tokens: "Play a game of tic tac toe against yourself on a 5x5 board, you need 5 in a row to win."
It costs $0.006 on Kimi K2.7, and you get to see the whole raw reasoning trace.
GPT-5.4 mini costs $0.016 and its summarized.
And in case you are wondering both play incredibly stupidly.
Kimi:
GPT 5.4 mini:Fable manages to make a reasonable game, at a cost of 40 cents.
The company does need to integrate the new AI-human-machine interface into its application development SDKs.
Saw in a discussion on Reddit that the team is evaluating glm5.2 so hopefully more to come!
https://fireworks.ai/blog/kimi-k2p7-code
I don’t know much about them but they did a deal with Microsoft in March:
https://azure.microsoft.com/en-us/blog/introducing-fireworks...
Has their reputation tanked so much that the alternatives get all the buzz? Or is it that non-enterprise users are priced out by the usage costs, so no free marketing?
I tried adding a Foundry LLM as Github Copilot custom model and failed miserably. But with VSCode BYOK (and Github Copilot as the interfact) i did get it working, and i can now use Deepseek V4 Flash with Copilot.
https://docs.github.com/en/copilot/reference/ai-models/model...