GitHub Copilot Chat
Shares rank 28 of 41 coding agents by recommenders
People recommend it for in-editor agentic coding in VS Code, with good results on whole-file generation. Critics say it lags in large sessions and feels worse after recent updates.
People recommend it for in-editor agentic coding in VS Code, with good results on whole-file generation. Critics say it lags in large sessions and feels worse after recent updates.
16 people gave an opinion
- recommend it
- 10
- criticize it
- 6
- approval share
- 63%
Recommended in 7 of 13 months
- November 2025: not recommended
- December 2025: recommended
- January 2026: recommended
- February 2026: recommended
- March 2026: recommended
- April 2026: recommended
- May 2026: recommended
- June 2026: not recommended
- July 2026: not recommended
- August 2026: not recommended
- September 2026: recommended
- October 2026: not recommended
- November 2026: not recommended (month in progress)
Why it doesn’t carry the badge
- 10 people recommend itNeeds 10 or more, met.
- 1.6 recommenders for every criticNeeds 2 to 1 or better, not met.
- Recommended in 7 of 13 monthsNeeds 4 or more, met.
The same three rules apply to every product, and the badge can’t be bought. How the badge works
What people say about it
The reasons people give, with the number of comments that give each one. Open a reason to read what they said.
Why people recommend it
Each mark is one comment
Good agentic integration inside VS Code
“The VS code copilot chat extension has really nice integration for 'human in the loop' style agentic development.”
Comment from 23 May 2026 in “Microsoft Drops Claude Code After Budget Overrun” “This gives us all the features of a top harness (vs code)”
Comment from 22 May 2026 in “Open source Kanban desktop app that runs parallel agents on every card” Good results generating whole files
“was able to create entire files with no memory errors on the first try for me”
Comment from 10 Dec 2025 in “If you're going to vibe code, why not do it in C?” “I've had outstansingly impressive results asking Copilot Chat with Sonnet 4.5”
Comment from 16 Dec 2025 in “AI will make formal verification go mainstream” Chat agent praised and improving
“The GitHub Copilot chat agent is great.”
Comment from 20 Jan 2026 in “Ask HN: Do you have any evidence that agentic coding works?” “already improves the experience a lot”
Comment from 9 Feb 2026 in “Billing can be bypassed using a combo of subagents with an agent definition”
What people warn about
Each mark is one comment
Recent versions feel worse or broken
“The underlying code for vscode github copilot chat has turned to shit.”
Comment from 23 Jan 2026 in “Claude.ai silently failing since Jan 14, no official acknowledgment” “VSCode Copilot Chat has become completely unusable.”
Comment from 2 Feb 2026 in “Claude Code is suddenly everywhere inside Microsoft” “Why does the copilot chat not work? It doesn't.”
Comment from 3 Oct 2026 in “GitHub's new dashboard experience now the default” - Comment from 10 Aug 2026 in “DeepSeek costs OpenCode Go user $1.14/day; dual DGX breaks even in 24 years”
Other coding agents people recommend
The four most recommended other coding agents, with the same counts for each, so you can compare like for like. The tick on each bar marks the 2 to 1 line the badge needs.
| Product | Recommend | Criticize | Approval | Months | Owned | Badge |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| GitHub Copilot | 571 | 993 | 37% | 12 | 1 yr46 owners | — |
| oh-my-pi | 104 | 28 | 79% | 9 | 2 mo5 owners | Approved |
| Grok Build CLI | 66 | 114 | 37% | 6 | — | — |
| DeepSeek Harness | 63 | 28 | 69% | 4 | 1 mo5 owners | Approved |
| GitHub Copilot ChatThis page | 10 | 6 | 63% | 7 | — | — |
What people said
All 20 comments that mention it, newest first. Each links to the original comment.
“Why does the copilot chat not work? It doesn't.”
“it works well enough if you are efficient or set up already”
“Shame to see that it can't be fully uninstalled, though.”
“you lose an "entire months" credits with any nominal task.”
“was previously worth it, and no longer is”
“the painful Copilot sidebar chat, which I now find myself allergic to”
“The VS code copilot chat extension has really nice integration for 'human in the loop' style agentic development.”
“This gives us all the features of a top harness (vs code)”
“I find vscode native copilot chat more pleasant to use, but also more laggy for large sessions.”
“You can use Copilot Chat with basically any API provider”
“it looks like poor release hygiene, really”
“from "Copilot Chat" and from "GitHub Copilot"”
“already improves the experience a lot”
“The web based chat is OK, but I'm not sure which model powers it.”
“VSCode Copilot Chat has become completely unusable.”
“The underlying code for vscode github copilot chat has turned to shit.”
“The GitHub Copilot chat agent is great.”
“I've had outstansingly impressive results asking Copilot Chat with Sonnet 4.5”
“Copilot Chat has been perfect in this respect.”
“was able to create entire files with no memory errors on the first try for me”
Counts come from 1,795,640 Hacker News comments, November 2025 to November 2026. How we count. Report a mistake.