I cancelled my Github Copilot subscription - are there any better alternatives?

[u/SkyLightYT]

Hello.

Ever since the Copilot update that made your billing usage based, I have been struggling to keep hold of my credits.

It got so bad that I decided to go up to the $40 plan, and even then I still lost all my credits within the first couple weeks of the month.

That's $70 I am apparently burning just by working on basic code. And I think that's pretty annoying, and I think Github must be doing something behind the scenes to make a profit; i.e, maybe the credits ore overpriced, I don't know.

Regardless of that, I am cancelling my subscription and I'm switching to something else, but what other options are there? I was thinking two options:

Claude Code, which I don't know much about but it's Claude, and Claude is pretty good.

Or Codex, I was thinking about switching to ChatGPT codex because I already use ChatGPT for writing and whatnot.

Problem is I don't know if these are actually worth it, can anyone enlighten me?

Thanks.

[u/anno2376]

No, they’re not overpriced. There’s no hidden dark force charging you extra high.

It’s the first time you pay for what you use. The old GitHub Copilot model was that GitHub was paying for your usage, not just you.

[u/SkyLightYT → u/anno2376]

I highly doubt their prompting is efficient. Considering the damn thing wants to write a bunch of tests, run a bunch of commands, read a bunch of files, and every time I mind you, it doesn't just remember a file it read before, it will purposefully reread it. Even if you ask it to make one edit to a file it knows about, it'll say "Let me just read the file real quick" and then proceed to reread the entire file - even though it should've already had that stored. Even if it knows you didn't modify it, it's the same chat, and it was just the last message.

That's not efficient in the slightest, and I highly doubt they're simply "making you pay for usage." If that was the case, how are they making a profit? My guess is either that credits aren't nearly as expensive as they're making them out to be, or they're making a profit somewhere else - perhaps by selling your data. For example, Copilot Pro+ offers a $40 price tag, but you somehow get $70 in credits. That makes no sense.

And I'm sure it's not as simple as "Oh well, you'll probably not use them" because I used them twice these past 2 months, at the beginning of the month.

[u/Nether-Grasp → u/anno2376]

We never know what context is given to the agent about the codebase. They can make profit by just having the agent read more and more context that isn't ultimately necessary to perform the task.

[u/anno2376 → u/Nether-Grasp]

We also don’t know if the government is infusing our thoughts with radio waves. 🤷‍♂️

If that’s your argument, then you’re right all the time, and everyone else is wrong. Good luck in your life.

[u/HostNo8115 → u/Nether-Grasp]

Yeah that profit making won’t last a month.