People keep searching for this comparison, and most of what ranks is stale or vibes. The first version of this post was vibes too. This rewrite is numbers: every price, limit, and score below was checked against official docs and leaderboards on July 21, 2026. One naming trap before we start: Codex here means OpenAI's current coding agent, not the retired 2021 model that once powered the original Copilot.
The 30-second version
GitHub Copilot
OpenAI Codex
Claude Code
What it is
Autocomplete, chat, and agents inside your editor and GitHub
OpenAI's coding agent inside ChatGPT, your terminal, and the cloud
Anthropic's agent-first coding tool, born in the terminal
Runs in
VS Code, Visual Studio, JetBrains, Xcode, Eclipse, github.com, CLI, mobile
ChatGPT desktop app, CLI, IDE extension, web, and via GitHub, Slack, Linear
Terminal, VS Code, JetBrains, desktop app, web, mobile
Models
20+ model picker across OpenAI, Anthropic, Google, Microsoft, Moonshot
GPT-5.6 family, GPT-5.5, GPT-5.4
Sonnet 5, Opus 4.8, Fable 5, Haiku 4.5
Cheapest way in
Free tier, then Pro at $10
ChatGPT Go at $8
Free tier, then Pro at $20
Persona
The neighbor next door
The road-trip uncle
The short-errand guy who became a general contractor
Pricing
Tier
GitHub Copilot
OpenAI Codex (ChatGPT)
Claude Code (Claude)
Free
$0, 2,000 completions + 50 chats/mo
$0, basic Codex access
$0, tight standard limits
Entry
Pro $10 ($15 in AI Credits included)
Go $8, light usage
Pro $20, or $17 billed annually
Mid
Pro+ $39 ($70 in credits)
Plus $20
Same Pro $20 covers it
Heavy
Max $100 ($200 in credits)
Pro $100 (5x Plus) or $200 (20x)
Max $100 (5x Pro) or $200 (20x)
Team seat
Business $19
Business $20 annual, $25 monthly
Team $20 to $25, premium seat $100
Enterprise seat
Enterprise $39
Custom
Custom
Pay as you go
Extra credits at $0.01 each
API key at token rates, or extra credits
Claude API at token rates
All three repriced in the first half of 2026, and in the same direction: flat subscriptions with a metered engine underneath. Copilot swapped premium requests for AI Credits on June 1. Codex moved to token-based credits on April 2, and ChatGPT added the $100 Pro tier on April 9. Anthropic doubled Claude Code's five-hour caps on May 6. Whichever you pick, you are budgeting tokens now, not seats.
Usage limits
GitHub Copilot
OpenAI Codex
Claude Code
Meter
AI Credits, 1 credit = $0.01, billed on tokens
Credits per token, varies by model
Time: rolling 5-hour window plus a weekly cap
What you get
$15/mo Pro, $70 Pro+, $200 Max; Business 1,900 credits, Enterprise 3,900 (promo 3,000 and 7,000 until Sep 1, 2026)
On Plus, per 5-hour window: 15 to 90 messages on GPT-5.6 Sol, 20 to 110 on Terra, 50 to 280 on Luna; Pro is 5x or 20x that
Pro roughly 40 to 80 hours of Sonnet a week; Max 5x roughly 140 to 280; Max 20x roughly 240 to 480
Never metered
Autocomplete and next-edit suggestions on all paid plans
Nothing
Nothing
When you run out
Buy credits or wait for the month
Buy credits, wait, or switch to an API key
Wait for the reset, or run through the API
Fine print
Cloud agent also consumes Actions minutes
Local and cloud tasks share one pool; weekly caps can apply on top
Claude chat and Claude Code share the same pool
Models
GitHub Copilot
OpenAI Codex
Claude Code
Native lineup
No frontier model of its own; Raptor mini (tuned GPT-5 mini) and Microsoft's MAI-Code-1-Flash
GPT-5.6 Sol, Terra, and Luna (272K context), GPT-5.5, GPT-5.4, plus GPT-5.3-Codex-Spark in research preview
Sonnet 5 (default, native 1M context), Opus 4.8 with optional 2.5x fast mode, Fable 5, Haiku 4.5
Other vendors
The whole market: GPT-5.x including Codex variants, Claude from Haiku 4.5 up to Fable 5, Gemini 2.5 Pro to 3.5 Flash, Kimi K2.7 Code
No
No
Catches
Free and Student tiers get automatic model selection only; Claude Fable 5 needs business or enterprise enablement
Codex-Spark is Pro-only for now
Fable 5 is opt-in via /model fable and unavailable under zero-data-retention agreements
Agents and automation
Capability
GitHub Copilot
OpenAI Codex
Claude Code
Inline autocomplete
Yes, unlimited on paid plans
No
No
IDE chat and agent mode
Yes
Yes, via extension
Yes, VS Code and JetBrains
CLI agent
Copilot CLI, all tiers
Codex CLI, open source
The original surface, fully scriptable
Cloud agent
Assign an issue, get a PR; 59-minute sessions, GitHub repos only
Parallel cloud tasks, kicked off from web, GitHub, Slack, or Linear
Web and mobile sessions you can pull into your terminal
Parallel work
One branch and PR per task
Several cloud tasks at once
Subagents and agent teams inside one session
Code review
Agentic PR review that can hand fixes straight to the agent
PR review inside the ChatGPT desktop app since July 9
/review locally, GitHub Action for every PR
MCP support
Yes, all tiers
Yes
Yes, Anthropic wrote the spec
Customization
Custom instructions, Memory on paid tiers
AGENTS.md
CLAUDE.md, hooks, skills, subagents, Agent SDK
Scheduled runs
Not offered
Not offered
Routines and desktop scheduled tasks
Hires the competition
Pro+ and Max can delegate tasks to Claude and Codex agents (preview)
No
No
The personas from the first version of this post survived the data pass. Copilot is still the neighbor who knows the block, closest to your editor and your repo host. Codex is still the road-trip uncle: hand over the keys, check back later. Claude Code outgrew short errands; with subagents, hooks, and scheduled routines it is now the most customizable of the three. That part is opinion. The tables are not.
Benchmarks
Benchmark
Best relevant results, July 2026
What it measures
Terminal-Bench 2.0, official leaderboard
Codex CLI with GPT-5.5 at 82.2%, the top named product CLI; best Claude harness (Opus 4.7) at 80.2%
Agents doing real work in a terminal
SWE-bench Verified, vendor-reported
Claude Opus 4.8 at 88.6%
Fixing real GitHub issues
SWE-bench Pro, vendor-reported
Opus 4.8 at 69.2% vs GPT-5.5 at 58.6%
A harder, contamination-resistant variant
GitHub Copilot
No product-level entry on either board; its ceiling is whichever model you pick
n/a
Hold the scores loosely. Vendor numbers come from tuned harnesses, the official leaderboards lag new releases (GPT-5.6 and Fable 5 are not on them yet), and the top entries sit within a few points of each other. The first version of this post argued you cannot benchmark a feeling. The data version of that claim: the harness you actually enjoy using matters more than two benchmark points.
Privacy and enterprise
Question
GitHub Copilot
OpenAI Codex
Claude Code
Trains on your code?
Free, Pro, and Pro+ interaction data trains models by default, opt out in settings (a 2026 change); Business and Enterprise never
Consumer plans: opt out in data controls; Business and Enterprise: not by default
Consumer plans: your privacy setting decides; Team, Enterprise, and API: no
IP indemnity
Business and Enterprise; individual tiers explicitly not included
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