GitHub Copilot
What it is: AI pair programmer inside your IDE. Real-time code suggestions as you type.
What It Does Best
Autocomplete on steroids. Suggests entire functions from comments. Finishes your code as you type.
Boilerplate killer. Write "function to validate email" and it writes the regex. Massive time saver.
Works where you work. VS Code, JetBrains, Neovim. No context switching.
Pricing
Individual: $10/month
Business: $19/user/month
Free: Verified students, open-source maintainers
When to Use It
✅ Writing code daily (pays for itself in saved time)
✅ Working in popular languages (Python, JavaScript, Java)
✅ Hate writing boilerplate and tests
✅ Learn by seeing suggested patterns
When NOT to Use It
❌ Rare/proprietary languages (less training data)
❌ Security-critical code (review every suggestion)
❌ Learning to code (might become a crutch)
Bottom line: Changed how developers write code. 30-40% productivity increase reported. $10/month is cheapest productivity boost you'll find.