GitHub Copilot CLI vs Claude code: Which is more suitable for you?

GitHub released Copilot CLI into public preview (terminal-native, GitHub-aware, agentic), and Anthropic shipped Claude Sonnet 4.5 plus upgrades to Claude Code (bigger agentic power, longer autonomous runs). Below I summarize what’s new for each, explains what each product is, compares price, context windows, code performance, core architecture, developer experience and tooling integration, shows how to use them, and outlines where they shine — so you can pick the right tool for your workflows.

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What is GitHub Copilot CLI?

GitHub Copilot CLI is GitHub’s command-line interface that brings Copilot’s chat-first, agent-enabled coding to your terminal. It provides a chat-like interaction model in the shell, can generate and edit files in the active repository, and — if you allow it — execute commands on your machine to run tests, build artifacts, or open editors. In short: it’s Copilot’s terminal persona, designed for rapid edits, bug-fixes, and scripted changes without leaving the terminal.

Key features

• Chat-style prompts and “edits” that apply changes to files in the current directory.
• Ability to suggest and run shell commands (with user confirmation). Responsible-use guidance warns about destructive commands.
• Model selection and integrations: Copilot supports multiple underlying models (OpenAI, Google, Anthropic variants that GitHub exposes to Copilot), and GitHub lets organizations choose model/quality tradeoffs in Copilot clients.

What’s new: GitHub Copilot CLI (public preview)

• Public preview announced Sept 25, 2025 — Copilot’s agent now runs as a first-class CLI tool so you can “chat” with an AI that reads & edits your local repo from the terminal.
• Key capabilities: terminal-native conversations, plan/execute multi-step coding tasks, interact with GitHub (repos, issues, PRs) using your GitHub auth, and edit/build/debug flows without switching to the web or IDE.
• Upgrade/transition notes: GitHub is deprecating the older gh-copilot extension — it will stop functioning Oct 25, 2025 — and admins are invited to evaluate the new Copilot CLI for enterprise policy controls. The new CLI is presented as a more agentic, capable replacement.

GitHub Copilot has put Claude Sonnet 4.5 into public beta, supporting Pro and higher plan users in chat, editing, and proxy modes.

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What is Claude Code?

Claude Code is Anthropic’s terminal-first, agentic coding assistant. It’s designed to “map and explain entire codebases” quickly, autonomously fetch relevant context from the repository, run tests, create PRs, and integrate with Git hosts and local tools. Claude Code is presented by Anthropic as a product optimized for engineering workflows rather than a generic chat model retrofitted into a CLI.

Key features

• Agentic context gathering: Claude Code automatically pulls relevant files and dependency information so you don’t have to craft large prompts manually.
• End-to-end workflow support: read issues, implement changes, run tests, and open PRs from the terminal. Integrations exist for GitHub/GitLab and common CI tools.
• Anchored to Anthropic’s reasoning models (Sonnet / Opus families), with controls and behavior tuned for coding tasks.

What’s new: Anthropic — Claude Sonnet 4.5 & Claude Code

• Claude Sonnet 4.5 released Sept 29, 2025 — Anthropic positions Sonnet 4.5 as a major leap for coding/agent tasks with improved reasoning, editing accuracy, and long-running agent behavior.
• Claude Code upgrades: Anthropic updated Claude Code (terminal interface v2.0, a native VS Code extension, checkpoints for autonomous workflows) and released a Claude Agent SDK for building agents. Claude Code is explicitly built for agentic, multi-step coding in large codebases.
• Standout model capability: Anthropic claims Sonnet 4.5 can sustain much longer autonomous runs (they advertise ~30 hours of continuous agentic operation) enabling extended, multi-step automation.
• The native VS Code extension has officially entered beta testing. This extension integrates Claude Code into the IDE sidebar, providing inline diff previews and graphical interaction. Users can view AI-modified code changes in real time, with one-click rollback support, greatly improving collaboration efficiency. This extension is currently only available for VS Code; compatibility with third-party IDEs such as Cursor will be available later.

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How do their prices compare?

GitHub Copilot CLI pricing model

GitHub Copilot CLI is distributed as part of the GitHub Copilot product families (individual and enterprise plans). Copilot has tiered plans (Pro, Pro+, Business/Enterprise) for individuals and organizations — the CLI experience is included under Copilot subscriptions rather than a separate paid product in most cases. Individual Copilot Pro has historically been positioned around $10/month (or $100/year) while higher tiers and enterprise pricing vary. Check your organization’s Copilot plan for exact entitlements (some advanced models or “premium requests” have per-request costs in enterprise tiers).

Claude Code pricing model

Anthropic offers Claude and Claude Code as part of subscription tiers (Free, Pro, Max, Team, Enterprise). Claude Code access is bundled into the Pro and Max subscriptions (and programmatic access is possible through Anthropic’s API). Pricing and rate limits are functionally tiered — Pro (~$17–$20/month historically) and Max (~$100+/month) — with larger teams and enterprises on negotiated plans. Anthropic also exposes pay-as-you-go API billing for programmatic uses. If your team’s usage is heavy (large token volumes or many agent runs), consider Max or enterprise options.

Practical cost comparison (short takeaway)

Copilot CLI is effectively “subscription + request budget” — predictable for individuals who pay a monthly Copilot plan and get a fixed number of premium requests; extra heavy agent-style usage can trigger extra charges. Claude Code usage cost depends on token volume, model chosen (Opus is more expensive on outputs than Sonnet), and whether you use Anthropic’s API or a subscription plan. For sustained programmatic/agent workflows on large contexts, Anthropic token costs can add up, though Sonnet’s lower per-token cost eases this for read-heavy workloads.

Practical cost considerations

• Small team / hobby: Copilot Pro (individual) or Claude Pro are both affordable entry points; which is cheaper depends on existing team licensing.
• Heavy/enterprise usage: Copilot Enterprise and Anthropic Team/Enterprise pricing should be compared on per-seat, per-token, and “premium request” costs. Also account for API-based billing if you integrate agent functions programmatically.

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What are the context window and memory differences?

How big a codebase can each hold in context?

• Claude (Sonnet / Opus): Anthropic’s recent Sonnet 4 supports up to 1,000,000 tokens in a long-context beta (announced Aug 2025) and Opus 4.1 commonly offers ~200k tokens for sustained reasoning/agent tasks. That makes Sonnet 4 exceptional for ingesting entire codebases, long design docs, or multi-file histories in a single prompt. Anthropic explicitly markets Sonnet’s 1M to ken capability for large codebases.
• GitHub Copilot: Copilot’s effective context window depends on which model you choose in Copilot and which client you use. Copilot Chat has seen large-window support (e.g., 64k with GPT-4o and up to 128k in VS Code Insiders in some configurations) but many users still experience smaller application-level limits (8k–32k) depending on the specific model in use and client constraints. In practice Copilot focuses on fast local edits and streaming completions rather than keeping entire million-token project snapshots in memory.

What that means for real work

If your workflows require the assistant to reason across entire monorepos, multiple large files, or long PR histories in a single session, Claude’s very large context options (Sonnet 4 family) give it a structural edge when that feature is available in your tier. Copilot still works extremely well for incremental edits, code completion, and quick edits where you don’t need a million-token view.

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How do they compare on code performance?

Measuring “better” depends on tasks: generation, bug fixes, refactors, or long-running autonomous agent workflows.

Claude (Opus/Sonnet) strengths

Anthropic markets Opus 4.1 and Sonnet 4 as models designed for sustained reasoning and agentic workflows, with explicit improvements for coding tasks and multi-step autonomy. Early reports and Anthropic benchmarks emphasize Opus/Sonnet strength in long-horizon, multi-step projects and lower hallucination rates in some reasoning tasks. Many user reports praise Claude Code for orchestrating multi-file edits and complex refactors.

GitHub Copilot strengths

GitHub Copilot (the family that includes Copilot CLI) benefits from tight IDE and repo integration, curated training signals from public code, and continuous model tuning specifically for developer workflows. GitHub also supports switching models to match the task (e.g., light completions vs deep reasoning), and Copilot’s integrations (inline suggestions, chat, agent modes) are highly optimized for developer UX. Performance in short, in-editor completions is frequently excellent.

Benchmarks & practical advice

For multi-file, end-to-end agentic projects (large refactors, multi-step builds), Anthropic’s Claude Code — leveraging Opus/Sonnet long contexts and agent controls — often performs better out of the box.

Public benchmark claims vary and vendors tune messaging to specific strengths. In practice:

For single-file completions, quick suggestions, and editor-centric workflows, Copilot (with an appropriate model) is extremely competent and fast.

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What are the core architectures behind each tool?

Claude Code — hybrid reasoning + agentic tooling

Anthropic’s Claude family is built around a “hybrid reasoning” philosophy: a single model capable of both near-instant replies and extended chain-of-thought-like internal processing, with built-in tooling for agentic actions (file access, executions, and connectors). Claude Code layers an agentic orchestration system on top of those models to fetch repository context, perform reasoning steps, and invoke side-effectful tools (tests, linters, git operations). The model also uses Anthropic’s Model Context Protocol (MCP) and Files APIs to manage context and tool integration.

GitHub Copilot CLI — multi-model orchestration + product integration

Copilot is a product layer that can orchestrate multiple underlying models (OpenAI, Anthropic, Google, Microsoft’s in-house models) depending on client, plan, and task. GitHub wraps model selection, caching, editor heuristics, and request routing into an integrated developer experience. It exposes that experience to the terminal, letting the product’s agent layer synthesize completions and edits and interact with the local environment. GitHub’s model-selection and “coding agent” features mean Copilot’s core architecture is product-first (client integrations + model routing).

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How do the developer experience and tooling integrations compare?

IDE & editor integrations

• GitHub Copilot: Deep integrations across VS Code, Visual Studio, JetBrains IDEs, Xcode, Eclipse, GitHub.com, and the terminal make Copilot ubiquitous inside the developer’s existing toolchain. That tight editor integration produces a very smooth inline completion and chat experience.
• Claude Code: Anthropic focuses on the terminal-first flow, but also provides extensions and integrations (VS Code extensions, JetBrains support via plugins) and Git/GitLab/GitHub connectors for PR workflows. The emphasis is terminal agent + IDE launchers rather than being embedded as an inline completion everywhere by default.

Workflow & automation

• Copilot CLI: Great for quick edits, patch generation, and running short sequences of commands. It leverages Copilot’s model-routing to keep latency low for interactive tasks.
• Claude Code: Built for multi-step agentic workflows: analyze whole modules, write tests, apply large refactors, and open PRs autonomously. Its context aggregation and agent tooling are designed for longer-running, higher-complexity tasks.

Team & governance

Both vendors provide enterprise features (admin controls, data governance, organization-level policies). GitHub’s enterprise integration is particularly handy if you already host code on GitHub; Anthropic offers enterprise and team plans with controls and private deployments for larger customers. Evaluate your security/legal requirements (data residency, logging) when choosing.

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How do you use GitHub Copilot CLI and Claude Code — quick start commands?

GitHub Copilot CLI — quick start

1. Install (example): gh extension install copilot/cli or follow the GitHub Copilot CLI docs.
2. Authenticate: run copilot auth login (or follow gh auth login flows tied to your Copilot subscription).
3. Start a chat: copilot or copilot chat in your repository. Ask: “Fix the failing tests in tests/” or “Add CLI flag parsing to src/main.rs”.
4. Apply edits: Copilot will generate patches and show diffs; accept to apply. Use --execute only when you trust the generated shell commands.

Claude Code — quick start

1. Install: Follow Anthropic’s Claude Code installation (CLI or package). Example: npm i -g @anthropic-ai/claude-code for integrations that use the npm package, or follow the official installer. )
2. Authenticate: claude login or provide API keys from your Anthropic account (Pro/Max required for full CLI features).
3. Initialize: claude code init (or claude code map) to allow Claude Code to scan and index the repo context.
4. Agent tasks: claude code run "implement feature X" or claude code fix --file path/to/file and then claude code pr to open a PR with your changes. Follow Anthropic’s best practices for context tuning to reduce token consumption.

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Where can each tool be used best?

Best fits for GitHub Copilot CLI

• Fast interactive coding loops and inline completions in editors and terminals.
• Developers who want a consistent Copilot experience across VS Code, Visual Studio, JetBrains and the terminal.
• Teams already invested in GitHub workflows that want minimal friction and convenient enterprise billing.

Best fits for Claude Code

• Large repositories, monorepos, and tasks that require multi-file reasoning and long context windows.
• Agentic automation (turn issues into PRs, run multi-step refactors) where the assistant must gather and reason about a lot of contextual material.
• Organizations that value advanced reasoning behavior and very-large-context modeling (when Sonnet/Opus big-window features are available to their plan).

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Which should you choose for your team?

A pragmatic decision checklist

• Need ultra-long context (whole repo reasoning)? Lean toward Claude Code when large context windows are critical and available in your subscription.
• Want ubiquitous inline completions and tight IDE integration? GitHub Copilot shines for editor-first workflows.
• Budget & billing: For individual developers, compare Copilot Pro vs Claude Pro. For enterprises calculate per-seat and API costs, plus expected token usage for agent runs.
• Governance & data residency: If you host code on GitHub and want GitHub-centric admin controls, Copilot’s enterprise offering may be more convenient. If you need Anthropic’s safety or reasoning features, evaluate Claude’s enterprise controls.

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Practical tips to get the most out of either tool

For both

• Treat AI edits like code reviews: run tests, read diffs, and limit automated execution of shell commands.
• Make small iterative prompts and verify outputs; inspect generated tests and linters before merging.
• Use model selection (where available) to match cost/performance to task — cheaper/faster models for trivial tasks, higher-quality models for complex refactors.

For Claude Code

• Tune the context-gathering settings: agentic context comes at token cost — be explicit about files and folders to include or exclude to avoid waste.

For Copilot CLI

• Use Copilot for quick, iterative, inline improvements and pair it with the full Copilot IDE experience when you need context browsing and code navigation.

Where to use Claude Code and how to Access?

We’re excited to announce that CometAPI now fully supports the powerful Claude Code. You only need to install Claude Code and authenticate with the obtained Comet API key and base address to use the Comet API model on Claude Code.

Why to use claude code through CometAPI?

Top Artificial Intelligence features: Easily generate, debug and optimize code using models built specifically for developers.

• Flexible Model Selection: Our comprehensive range of models allows you to develop more seamlessly.
• Seamless Integration: APIs are always available. Integrate Claude Code directly into your existing workflow in minutes.
• Using Claude Code via CometAPI will save more costs. The API provided by CometAPI is 20% off the official price and is updated with the latest model by the official. The latest model is Claude Sonnet 4.5.

Ready to use Claude Code? consult the API guide for detailed instructions.

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Conclusion

Copilot CLI and Claude Code are not perfect substitutes — they are complementary. Copilot is the fastest path to high-quality inline completions and editor-anchored experiences. Claude Code is a purpose-built agentic assistant for deep repo-level reasoning and long-horizon tasks. Teams that adopt both — Copilot for everyday editing and Claude Code for heavy-duty automation and multi-file transformations — will often get the best of both worlds.