A developer in one of my SPFx training batches asked me a fair question: his company had just bought Microsoft 365 Copilot, so why couldn’t he get Copilot suggestions in VS Code? He’d looked for a sign-in button for an hour.
The short answer was no. The Copilot in Word and Teams and the Copilot in a code editor share a name, but they’re separate products from separate companies, with separate licenses.
In this tutorial, we’ll compare GitHub Copilot vs Microsoft Copilot side by side: what each one does, what data it can see, how it’s licensed in 2026, where Copilot Studio fits, and which one a SharePoint or Power Platform team actually needs.
Quick answer: GitHub Copilot is GitHub’s AI coding assistant for developers. It suggests code, answers questions about your repository and can make changes and open pull requests. Microsoft Copilot (formerly the Microsoft 365 Copilot app) helps with email, documents, meetings and chat in Microsoft 365. They’re licensed separately, and neither license includes the other.
What’s the Difference Between GitHub Copilot and Microsoft Copilot?
The cleanest way I explain it to clients: GitHub Copilot works on code, and Microsoft Copilot works on the files, email and meetings you already have in Microsoft 365. Here’s how they line up on the points people ask me about most.
| GitHub Copilot | Microsoft Copilot (work) | |
|---|---|---|
| Main job | Write, explain, review and fix code | Draft, summarize and find information in Microsoft 365 |
| Built for | Developers and DevOps engineers | Information workers, managers and admins |
| Where you use it | VS Code and other supported editors, GitHub.com, the terminal (Copilot CLI) | The Microsoft Copilot app, Word, Excel, PowerPoint, Outlook, Teams, Edge |
| What it can see | Your code, repository, issues and pull requests | The web, plus emails, files, chats and meetings you can already open (paid license) |
| Sign-in | Your GitHub account | Your Microsoft 365 work account |
| Who sells it | GitHub (owned by Microsoft) | Microsoft |
| License | GitHub Copilot plan | Copilot Chat included; Microsoft 365 Copilot is a paid add-on |
So if your goal is a summary of yesterday’s project call, you want Microsoft Copilot; my guide to using Copilot in Teams meetings shows that flow. If your goal is a working React component, you want GitHub Copilot.
Why the Copilot Names Are So Confusing
Half of the questions I get come from the names, not the products. Microsoft renamed its work app, and the old and new names will sit side by side for a while.
- Microsoft Copilot is the new name of the Microsoft 365 Copilot app, and Microsoft Copilot Chat is the new name of Microsoft 365 Copilot Chat. The license in the admin center still says Microsoft 365 Copilot.
- The free consumer Copilot you use with a personal Microsoft account is also called Microsoft Copilot. Signed in with your work account, you get the business version with enterprise data protection and a Work label under your profile.
- GitHub Copilot is a separate product from GitHub, with its own plans and its own sign-in.
Here’s how that looks on a real tenant. I opened Copilot Chat with my work account, which has no Microsoft 365 Copilot add-on, and the account label in the bottom-left corner reads Work – Bijay Kumar – Copilot Chat (Basic):
That label is the quickest way to know what you have. Copilot Chat (Basic) means no add-on license and no Copilot in Word, Excel, PowerPoint or OneNote. Microsoft 365 Copilot (Basic) adds standard access in those apps, and (Premium) means the paid add-on.
Then Copilot Studio added a new twist. When I opened the New agent dropdown on the Agents page, the first option was Agent (GitHub Copilot), “Create an agent to take actions and answer questions,” next to Customer Assist Agent and Agent (Standard):
That doesn’t mean GitHub Copilot is inside Copilot Studio. Microsoft calls it the GitHub Copilot harness, a Copilot Studio runtime for reasoning-heavy, multistep agents. It shares technology with GitHub Copilot, but your data isn’t sent to the GitHub Copilot service, and you don’t need a GitHub license. Those agents use Copilot Credits.
One more name to know: Microsoft now previews Microsoft Copilot Code in its Frontier program, for business users who want to build and automate code in plain language. It needs the Premium license plus usage-based billing, and it isn’t GitHub Copilot. If Copilot Studio is the part that confuses you, read Microsoft 365 Copilot vs Copilot Studio next.
What GitHub Copilot Does for Developers
GitHub Copilot lives where developers work. As you type, it suggests the next line or a whole function, and next edit suggestions predict the change you’ll probably make next. In the chat view you ask about your code, an error message or a failing test.
The bigger shift over the last year is agents. These are the features I use most on SharePoint projects:
- Agent mode: you describe a goal, and Copilot plans the work, edits several files and runs commands in your editor.
- Cloud agent: you assign it a GitHub issue, it works on a branch on its own and opens a pull request for you to review.
- Code review: Copilot reviews a pull request and suggests fixes.
- Copilot CLI: an agent in your terminal that can answer questions, edit files and work with Git.
- MCP servers and skills: extra tools and instructions that teach Copilot about a platform, such as Dataverse or SPFx.
It’s still a developer tool. It won’t summarize your inbox or read your SharePoint sites, and it doesn’t care whether you have a Microsoft 365 license. For an SPFx developer that’s fine, because the work happens in the project folder. Our SPFx tutorials are a good test bed.
GitHub Copilot Plans, AI Credits and Your Code
GitHub sells Copilot Free, Student, Pro, Pro+ and Max for individuals, and Copilot Business and Copilot Enterprise for organizations. Business and Enterprise are billed per granted seat, and Student is free for verified students.
Billing changed on June 1, 2026. GitHub moved every plan to usage-based GitHub AI Credits. Code completions and next edit suggestions don’t use credits and stay unlimited on paid plans. Chat, agents, the CLI and the cloud agent do. Copilot Free caps completions at 2,000 a month and doesn’t include the cloud agent.
Read this part before you pick a plan for client work. Since April 24, 2026, GitHub may use interactions from Free, Pro, Pro+ and Max to train its models, unless you set Allow GitHub to use my data for AI model training to Disabled in your Copilot settings.
Copilot Business and Enterprise customer data isn’t used for training. Those plans also give admins policies and seat management. If your team writes code for clients, I’d always buy Business or Enterprise rather than let people use personal plans.
What Microsoft Copilot Does at Work
Microsoft Copilot is a productivity assistant, not a coding tool. What it can see depends on the license, and this is where most buying mistakes happen.
| Experience | What it answers from | Copilot in Word, Excel, PowerPoint |
|---|---|---|
| Copilot Chat (Basic) | The web, plus files you upload or content open in Outlook and Teams | No |
| Microsoft 365 Copilot (Basic) | Same as Copilot Chat | Yes, standard access |
| Microsoft 365 Copilot (Premium) | The web plus your emails, files, meetings, chats and sites through Microsoft Graph and Work IQ | Yes, priority access |
All three come with enterprise data protection when you sign in with a work account, and all three respect your permissions. Copilot never shows you a SharePoint file you can’t already open, so fix oversharing before you roll out the Premium license.
With Premium, prompts like “Draft a status update from the project plan in our SharePoint site” or “What did Alex Wilber send me about the contract renewal?” just work, because Copilot finds the content for you. Without it, you have to upload the file yourself.
Premium users also get agents that use work data, such as an agent that generates a Word document in Microsoft 365 Copilot. Copilot Chat users can still use agents grounded in instructions and public websites; other agents are pay-as-you-go.
Does a Microsoft 365 Copilot License Include GitHub Copilot?
No, and this was my developer’s exact question. Microsoft lists GitHub Copilot among its “other Copilot products” that are licensed independently. A Microsoft 365 Copilot license won’t light up Copilot in VS Code, and a GitHub Copilot Business seat won’t add Copilot to Word or Teams.
They also live in different admin centers. You assign Microsoft 365 Copilot licenses in the Microsoft 365 admin center, and you grant GitHub Copilot seats in your GitHub organization or enterprise settings. Plan both budgets separately.
Where Copilot Studio Fits
Copilot Studio is the third piece, and it’s the one I spend most of my time in. It’s Microsoft’s tool for building your own agents, such as an HR or help desk agent that answers from SharePoint and runs in Teams.
It isn’t a coding assistant and it isn’t the Copilot in Word. You build agents in a browser, pick an agent type (the GitHub Copilot harness, Customer Assist or Standard) and add knowledge. If you’re new to it, start with how to create a new agent in Copilot Studio.
For SharePoint teams the most useful pattern is grounding an agent in your own content, for example when you use a SharePoint list as knowledge. You’ll find every build in our Copilot Studio tutorials.
How SharePoint and Power Platform Developers Use GitHub Copilot
This is where GitHub Copilot earns its seat on a Microsoft 365 team. Microsoft now publishes tools made for coding agents like GitHub Copilot:
- SPFx Dev Skills (preview): one spfx skill that guides an agent through web parts, extensions, Adaptive Card Extensions, upgrades with CLI for Microsoft 365, Heft builds and PnPjs data access.
- Power Apps code apps: Microsoft’s quickstart goes from a prompt to a deployed code app with the GitHub Copilot CLI and the code apps plugin.
- Dataverse MCP server: GitHub Copilot in VS Code (agent mode) or the Copilot CLI can query your Dataverse tables, once the Microsoft GitHub Copilot MCP client is allowed in the environment.
Before you let an agent loose on SPFx, make sure your SPFx development environment with the Heft toolchain builds cleanly. Agents work much better when the project already compiles.
Treat every suggestion like code from a new teammate. Review it, test it in a dev tenant, and never paste a client secret into a prompt. Knowing the basics, such as how to call Microsoft Graph from an SPFx web part, helps you spot a wrong answer fast.
The same goes for scripts. Copilot writes PnP PowerShell quickly, but compare it with tested PnP PowerShell scripts for SharePoint developers before you run anything against production.
Where ChatGPT Fits
People often throw ChatGPT into this comparison too. It’s OpenAI’s general-purpose assistant: great for brainstorming, explaining a concept or drafting text you give it. It isn’t built into Word, Teams or your code editor the way the two Copilots are.
I won’t repeat the whole comparison here; I covered it in Is Copilot better than ChatGPT? My rule of thumb: pick based on where your data lives. For work inside Microsoft 365, Microsoft Copilot already knows your files and permissions.
Which Copilot Should You Use?
Here’s the cheat sheet I share with clients when they ask which licenses to buy:
| If you want to … | Use |
|---|---|
| Write or fix SPFx, PowerShell, TypeScript or C# code | GitHub Copilot |
| Have an agent work on an issue and open a pull request | GitHub Copilot (cloud agent) |
| Summarize a Teams meeting or a long email thread | Microsoft Copilot |
| Draft a document from files in SharePoint without uploading them | Microsoft 365 Copilot (Premium) |
| Ask a quick work question with enterprise data protection | Copilot Chat (Basic) |
| Build an agent that answers from your SharePoint sites | Copilot Studio |
| Brainstorm or research outside Microsoft 365 | Copilot Chat or ChatGPT |
Most Microsoft 365 teams I work with end up with two: Copilot Chat or Microsoft 365 Copilot for everyone, and GitHub Copilot Business for the developers. Makers who build bigger automations add Copilot Studio, sometimes with autonomous agents.
Common Mix-Ups and How to Fix Them
| What happens | Why | Fix |
|---|---|---|
| No Copilot in VS Code after the Microsoft 365 Copilot rollout | That license doesn’t include GitHub Copilot | Buy a GitHub Copilot Business seat and sign in with GitHub |
| Copilot Chat can’t find a SharePoint file | Copilot Chat (Basic) doesn’t use Microsoft Graph | Upload the file, or assign Microsoft 365 Copilot (Premium) |
| No Copilot button in Word | The label says Copilot Chat (Basic) | Check the license; Basic users don’t get Copilot in Word |
| Answers ignore company data | Signed in with a personal Microsoft account | Sign out and sign in with the work account; look for the Work label |
| Copilot Studio asks about “GitHub Copilot” | That’s the GitHub Copilot harness agent type | No GitHub license needed; pick Standard for rule-based agents |
| Developers on personal Pro plans | Interactions may train GitHub’s models | Move them to Business or Enterprise, or set training to Disabled |
If you’re rolling out Copilot and agents this year, these will help next:
Frequently Asked Questions
Is GitHub Copilot the same as Microsoft Copilot?
No. GitHub Copilot is a coding assistant licensed through GitHub. Microsoft Copilot works in Microsoft 365 apps such as Word, Outlook and Teams. They share a name and some technology, but they’re separate products with separate licenses.
Does a Microsoft 365 Copilot license include GitHub Copilot?
No. Microsoft lists GitHub Copilot as an independently licensed product in What is Microsoft Copilot. You need a GitHub Copilot plan for code editors and a Microsoft 365 Copilot license for Copilot in Word, Excel and PowerPoint.
What’s the difference between GitHub Copilot and Microsoft Copilot Chat?
Copilot Chat is included with eligible Microsoft 365 licenses and answers from the web plus files you give it, with enterprise data protection. GitHub Copilot works on code in your editor, on GitHub.com and in the terminal.
Does GitHub Copilot use my code for training?
Not on Copilot Business or Enterprise. On Free, Pro, Pro+ and Max, GitHub may use interactions for training since April 24, 2026, unless you disable it in your Copilot settings. Current plans are on GitHub Copilot plans.
Is Microsoft Copilot or GitHub Copilot better for SharePoint developers?
Use both. GitHub Copilot helps write and upgrade SPFx, PowerShell and Power Apps code apps. Microsoft Copilot helps with the documents, meetings and email around the project.
Hey! I’m Bijay Kumar, founder of SPGuides.com and a Microsoft Business Applications MVP (Power Automate, Power Apps). I launched this site in 2020 because I truly enjoy working with SharePoint, Power Platform, and SharePoint Framework (SPFx), and wanted to share that passion through step-by-step tutorials, guides, and training videos. My mission is to help you learn these technologies so you can utilize SharePoint, enhance productivity, and potentially build business solutions along the way.