GitHub Copilot code review
Ranked 2 of 5 AI code reviewers by recommenders
People recommend it for catching niche bugs and issues humans miss, with more useful findings than older diff-only linters. The most common caveat is false positives and noisy comments.
People recommend it for catching niche bugs and issues humans miss, with more useful findings than older diff-only linters. The most common caveat is false positives and noisy comments.
40 people gave an opinion
- recommend it
- 14
- criticize it
- 26
- approval share
- 35%
Recommended in 8 of 13 months
- November 2025: not recommended
- December 2025: recommended
- January 2026: recommended
- February 2026: recommended
- March 2026: recommended
- April 2026: recommended
- May 2026: not recommended
- June 2026: recommended
- July 2026: not recommended
- August 2026: not recommended
- September 2026: recommended
- October 2026: recommended
- November 2026: not recommended (month in progress)
Why it doesn’t carry the badge
- 14 people recommend itNeeds 10 or more, met.
- 0.5 recommenders for every criticNeeds 2 to 1 or better, not met.
- Recommended in 8 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
Finds niche issues humans miss
“some of them are actual findings of issues that simply would have gone unaddressed previously”
Comment from 19 Oct 2026 in “The reverts will continue until morale improves” “generally pretty good at finding niche issues that aren't as easily caught by humans”
Comment from 10 Mar 2026 in “Code Review for Claude Code” “But I've found a bunch of bugs this way too.”
Comment from 16 Jan 2026 in “Supply Chain Vuln Compromised Core AWS GitHub Repos & Threatened the AWS Console” Generally good, works well
“Copilot code review is amazing. I use it all the time.”
Comment from 18 Dec 2025 in “AI helps ship faster but it produces 1.7× more bugs” “copilot reviews on Github are surprisingly insightful”
Comment from 15 Mar 2026 in “Ask HN: How is AI-assisted coding going for you professionally?” “works fine for me, much better than I expected”
Comment from 10 Mar 2026 in “Code Review for Claude Code” - Comment from 4 Apr 2026 in “How many products does Microsoft have named 'Copilot'? I mapped every one”
Better than linters or diff-only CI
“I found it to be WAY better than our prior CI reviews that just looked at diff and had TONs of false positives.”
Comment from 15 Sep 2026 in “GPT-5.6 Luna vs. GPT-6 Astra: Is a $1.20 Model Good Enough for Code Review?” “GH Copilot is definitely far better than just a linter.”
Comment from 26 Jan 2026 in “There Is an AI Code Review Bubble” Simple optional feature, integrates well
“Github Copilot review is such a simple - optional - ux, it makes sense as a feature.”
Comment from 3 Dec 2025 in “Zig quits GitHub, says Microsoft's AI obsession has ruined the service” “it does a great job, integrates very well with the PR comment system”
Comment from 26 Jan 2026 in “There Is an AI Code Review Bubble”
What people warn about
Each mark is one comment
False positives and nit-picky comments
“the vast majority of them are false positives”
Comment from 16 Jan 2026 in “Supply Chain Vuln Compromised Core AWS GitHub Repos & Threatened the AWS Console” “tends to miss actual bugs and report nonexistent bugs, making it worse than useless”
Comment from 4 Dec 2025 in “Everyone in Seattle hates AI” “noticed this "low quality nit-picky" style of review comments as well”
Comment from 14 Apr 2026 in “The exponential curve behind open source backlogs” Costs money, double billing for minutes
“GitHub Copilot Code Review is four cents per review once you're outside of the credits included with your subscription.”
Comment from 9 Mar 2026 in “Code Review for Claude Code” “Double billing for minutes and tokens is intentional obfuscation.”
Comment from 28 Apr 2026 in “GitHub Copilot code review will start consuming GitHub Actions minutes” “Why would non-actions activity consume actions budget?”
Comment from 28 Apr 2026 in “GitHub Copilot code review will start consuming GitHub Actions minutes” Hard to verify, unreliable comments
“it is extremely unreliable and hard to monitor”
Comment from 7 Feb 2026 in “GitHub Actions Is Slowly Killing Your Engineering Team” “it’s started writing really difficult to verify review comments”
Comment from 30 Oct 2026 in “Ask HN: Are you tired too in this AI era?”
Other AI code reviewers people recommend
The four most recommended other AI code reviewers, 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 |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Cursor Bugbot | 27 | 6 | 82% | 9 | — | Approved |
| GitHub Copilot code reviewThis page | 14 | 26 | 35% | 8 | — | — |
| Greptile | 9 | 15 | 38% | 5 | — | — |
| Caliper | 5 | 0 | 100% | 5 | — | — |
| Cubic AI code reviewer | 5 | 1 | 83% | 4 | — | — |
What people said
40 of the 43 comments that mention it, newest first. Each links to the original comment.
“it’s started writing really difficult to verify review comments”
“Not only did copilot eat up all my bloody llm credits”
“some of them are actual findings of issues that simply would have gone unaddressed previously”
“It misses too much and has too many wrong findings.”
“I found it to be WAY better than our prior CI reviews that just looked at diff and had TONs of false positives.”
“it recently introduced a monster of a misfeature that caused a massive increase in complexity over time”
“GitHub's copilot review feature is an equally miserable experience.”
“it often will tell them to you bit by bit over 2-3 runs after you fix the previous issues”
“co-pilot code reviews don't add a lot of value”
“These aren't products that need to run on a CI system.”
“we don't review the code ourselves, but the project is growing faster than their context windows”
“a very unprofitable service propped up by investor money trying to capture market share”
“Turning compute into excrement as fast as the planet is filled with it.”
“Double billing for minutes and tokens is intentional obfuscation.”
“enabling Copilot reviews globally for a large proportion of Github was a bit hasty.”
“They even litter your Actions tab list and Deployment environments.”
“It gives a false message that the PR is resonating with folks and has real activity.”
“I don't like it, though. If I were an enterprise my first response would be to turn it off.”
“Why would non-actions activity consume actions budget?”
“Which as a side effect doubled the time (or so) to do a review.”
“noticed this "low quality nit-picky" style of review comments as well”
“copilot code review is great”
“copilot code review agent is pretty good at catching when code and comments diverge”
“copilot reviews on Github are surprisingly insightful”
“I have yet to get a worthwhile GitHub Copilot review.”
“works fine for me, much better than I expected”
“generally pretty good at finding niche issues that aren't as easily caught by humans”
“The noise it generates easily costs that much in wasted time.”
“GitHub Copilot Code Review is four cents per review once you're outside of the credits included with your subscription.”
“copilot was having negative value in that context”
“it is extremely unreliable and hard to monitor”
“GH Copilot is definitely far better than just a linter.”
“it does a great job, integrates very well with the PR comment system”
“But I've found a bunch of bugs this way too.”
“it also reviews any PRs you create on any repo and marks these as if you requested the review. Unacceptable.”
“the vast majority of them are false positives”
“it added that many dumb questions/suggestions”
“Copilot code review is amazing. I use it all the time.”
“tends to miss actual bugs and report nonexistent bugs, making it worse than useless”
“Github Copilot review is such a simple - optional - ux, it makes sense as a feature.”
Counts come from 1,795,640 Hacker News comments, November 2025 to November 2026. How we count. Report a mistake.