GitHub Copilot vs Cursor for teams: which should builders use?

	GitHub Copilot	Cursor
Team plans	Copilot Business (for organizations and enterprises) and Copilot Enterprise (GitHub Enterprise Cloud only). Copilot isn't available for GitHub Enterprise Server	Teams (self-serve, priced per seat) and Enterprise (custom, contact sales)
Seat prices (monthly vs annual)	Business $19 and Enterprise $39 per granted seat per month. GitHub lists monthly per-seat prices only; no annual discount is published	Premium $30, Super $100 or Ultra $200 per user/mo, plus Free $0 seats for members who bring their own plan. You choose a billing cycle when you create a team, but cursor.com/pricing lists monthly prices only and no annual discount is published
What a seat includes	Unlimited code completions and next edit suggestions, plus GitHub AI Credits for everything else (chat, agent mode, Copilot CLI, cloud agent, code review, Spaces): 1,900 credits ($19) per user/mo on Business, 3,900 ($39) on Enterprise. Also IP indemnity, policy management, content exclusion and audit logs	The Cursor editor, agent, CLI, cloud agents and automations, and Bugbot, with a weekly usage pool for Cursor's own models (Grok 4.7, 4.6, 4.5 and Composer 2.5). Super is 3.75x Premium usage, Ultra 12.5x
Usage limits and overage	Usage is metered in GitHub AI Credits (1 credit = $0.01), priced per token by model. Premium requests are legacy, kept only for some individual annual plans after June 1, 2026. Past the pool, additional usage costs $0.01 per credit. That paid-usage policy is on by default; if an admin turns it off, Copilot pauses until the pool resets	Cursor models draw from each seat's weekly pool. Third-party models bill at public API list price plus the Cursor Token Rate ($0.25 per million tokens) from the first request, and Cursor models past the weekly pool bill at their token rates, all from the team's prepaid balance (one-time top-ups or Auto Top-up)
Models	One catalog, all billed from credits: Claude (Haiku, Sonnet, Opus, Fable), OpenAI GPT-5.x and GPT-6.x, Google Gemini, xAI Grok 4.5 to 4.7, Kimi K3 and Microsoft MAI-Code. Admins enable models through Copilot policies. Code review picks its model automatically	Cursor's own models (Grok 4.7, 4.6, 4.5 and Composer 2.5) are included in the seat. OpenAI, Anthropic, Google, Moonshot and other third-party models bill at API list price plus the Cursor Token Rate. Model access controls are Enterprise-only
Is usage pooled?	Yes, on Business and Enterprise. Every seat's credits go into one pool for the billing entity, so 10 Business seats share 19,000 credits. Unused credits don't roll over, and the pool resets at 00:00 UTC on the 1st of each month	Not on Teams: each paid seat has its own weekly pool, and usage doesn't transfer between members. Pooled usage is an Enterprise feature
Spend controls	Enterprise admins set user-level budgets (a universal default, per cost center or per user, always a hard stop), cost center budgets and an enterprise spending limit. Organization owners set organization budgets. Alerts at 75%, 90% and 100% of a budget. 'Stop usage when budget limit is reached' is off by default, so turn it on	One monthly additional-usage limit for the team, a default per-member limit and per-member overrides. Enterprise adds group-level spend limits and granular spend controls
SSO and SCIM	SAML SSO is listed for Business and Enterprise, but it's set up on your GitHub organization or enterprise, and GitHub's SAML SSO and SCIM require GitHub Enterprise Cloud (from $21/user/mo)	SAML 2.0 / OIDC SSO on Teams at no extra cost, with domain verification and auto-enroll on SSO sign-in. SCIM is Enterprise-only and needs SSO set up first
Audit logs	Included on Business and Enterprise: Copilot settings and policy changes, license changes and agent activity on GitHub. Prompts sent locally from an IDE or the CLI aren't in the audit log	Enterprise-only: authentication, user management and admin actions, with SIEM streaming
Analytics	Copilot usage metrics on Business and Enterprise: a 28-day usage dashboard, a code generation dashboard, an impact dashboard that ties adoption to pull request output, plus APIs and NDJSON export. The richest data needs IDE telemetry turned on	Teams: web dashboard with AI share of committed code, agent edits, Tab acceptance, a usage leaderboard, cloud agent PRs and CSV export. The Analytics API, Conversation Insights and Cursor Blame are Enterprise
IP indemnity	Yes on Business and Enterprise (not on the individual Pro, Pro+ or Max plans), for unmodified suggestions when the filter that blocks suggestions matching public code is on	Teams are covered by Cursor's MSA, where Anysphere indemnifies customers against third-party IP claims about the service or its suggestions. It excludes cases such as disabling Cursor's content filters or safety systems
Privacy and data retention	No training on Business or Enterprise data. Prompts and suggestions from IDE chat and completions aren't retained; from GitHub.com, Mobile and the CLI they're kept 28 days. Engagement data is kept two years. Content exclusion keeps chosen files away from Copilot	Privacy Mode (no training on your code by Cursor or model providers) can be enforced team-wide on Teams, plus custom Chat data retention. Cloud agents store encrypted repo copies only while they run. CMEK and US data residency are Enterprise
PR code review	Copilot code review on GitHub.com (plus Azure DevOps in public preview) and in VS Code, Visual Studio, JetBrains and Xcode. Manual or automatic, Lite or Balanced effort. GitHub estimates $0.05 to $1 of credits per Lite review and $0.25 to $5 per Balanced review, plus GitHub Actions minutes. Orgs can turn it on for members without a Copilot seat, billed to the org	Bugbot, billed by usage from the team's prepaid credit. Works on GitHub (including Enterprise Server), GitLab (including Self-Hosted), Bitbucket (including Data Center), Azure DevOps and Origin, for all contributors to enabled repos. Autofix uses cloud agent credits
Coding agent	Copilot cloud agent (what GitHub's docs now call the coding agent) takes work from issues, the agents panel, chat or Copilot CLI, runs in a GitHub Actions runner and opens a pull request. One repo and one PR per task, with a 59-minute session cap. Off by default on Business and Enterprise until an admin turns it on. Can also hand tasks to Claude and Codex agents (preview)	Cloud agents (formerly Background Agents) run in parallel in isolated VMs with full dev environments, can work across several repos in one task and open PRs in each. Start them from the editor, web, iOS, Slack, GitHub, Bitbucket, Linear or the API. Billed at API pricing for the selected model
Supported git hosts	GitHub for the cloud agent and everything on GitHub.com; code review adds Azure DevOps (public preview). Not available on GitHub Enterprise Server. In the IDE, completions, chat and agent mode work on whatever code you have open	GitHub (Cloud and Enterprise Server), GitLab (Cloud and Self-Hosted; needs GitLab Premium or Ultimate), Bitbucket, Azure DevOps and Cursor's own Origin hosting, for cloud agents and Bugbot
IDE support	VS Code, Visual Studio, JetBrains IDEs, Eclipse, Xcode, Neovim, Zed, Raycast and SQL Server Management Studio, plus GitHub.com, GitHub Mobile, Copilot CLI and the Copilot app. Agent mode runs in VS Code, Visual Studio, JetBrains, Eclipse and Xcode	Cursor's own desktop editor (a VS Code fork), the Cursor CLI (also headless in scripts and CI), Cursor's agent inside JetBrains IDEs through ACP, and Xcode projects through Xcode's MCP bridge. Web and iOS for cloud agents
Billing	Monthly per assigned seat. Added seats are prorated (paid up front on card or PayPal); removed or suspended users are billed to the end of the cycle. Usage past the pool is charged at the start of the next cycle	Card on self-serve plans; invoice/PO billing is Enterprise-only. Bills per active paid seat, prorated when you add someone mid-cycle. Upgrades apply right away, downgrades at the end of the period
Pricing (approx.)	Free plan; Pro $10/mo; Pro+ $39/mo; Max $100/mo; Business $19/user/mo; Enterprise $39/user/mo	Free tier; paid plans from $8/mo (Plus) up to $200/mo (Ultra); Teams from $30/user/mo
Our rankings	#7 in Coding agents	#1 in Vibe coding, #1 in Coding agents, #6 in UI generators, #2 in Indie games

What a 10-person team pays

At list prices before tax: 10 Copilot Business seats are $190/mo, and they pool 19,000 AI credits ($190 of model usage at GitHub's per-token rates) that anyone on the team can draw from. Past the pool, usage is $0.01 per credit. If you need SAML SSO or SCIM, your GitHub organization has to be on GitHub Enterprise Cloud (from $21/user/mo, so another $210/mo for 10 members). 10 Copilot Enterprise seats are $390/mo with 39,000 pooled credits, and Copilot Enterprise requires Enterprise Cloud, so about $600/mo all-in. 10 Cursor Premium seats are $300/mo with SSO included. Each seat's weekly pool covers Cursor's own models, and any Claude, GPT or Gemini use is billed on top at API list price plus $0.25 per million tokens. 8 Premium + 2 Super seats is $440/mo. The per-token rates we spot-checked match (Claude Opus 5.5 is $4 input and $20 output per million tokens on both). So the real difference: a Copilot Business seat includes $19 a month of any model, shared across the team, while a Cursor seat includes a weekly pool of Cursor's models only.

How usage limits work for teams

Copilot meters everything except code completions and next edit suggestions in GitHub AI Credits. Each Business seat adds 1,900 credits to an org-wide pool that resets on the 1st of each month (UTC). Adding a seat mid-month grows the pool right away; removing one only shrinks it next month. When the pool runs out, work continues at $0.01 per credit unless an admin has turned off the 'AI credits paid usage' policy, which is on by default. User-level budgets cap individuals across both phases, and there's no automatic fallback to a cheaper model when a budget runs out. Cursor Teams gives each paid seat its own weekly pool for Cursor's models, which can't be shared. Everything else, including every third-party model request from the first token, comes from one prepaid team balance that admins top up and cap with a monthly limit. When the balance or the limit runs out, additional usage stops.

Can a team run both?

Yes. Developers who want an AI-first editor can keep Cursor seats for the editor, cloud agents and Bugbot, while the rest of the GitHub organization uses Copilot Business in JetBrains, Visual Studio, Xcode or Neovim. An org on Copilot Business can also turn on Copilot code review for members without a Copilot seat, billed to the org in AI credits, so you don't need a seat for everyone to get PR reviews. If you have both review bots, run only one automatically so pull requests don't get two sets of comments. If you'd rather standardize on Cursor, its agent also runs inside JetBrains IDEs through ACP.

Pick GitHub Copilot if…

Your code lives on GitHub and your developers use a mix of editors (VS Code, JetBrains, Visual Studio, Xcode, Neovim). You want one pooled allowance that covers models from every major lab for $19/user/mo, IP indemnity, audit logs and content exclusion on the Business plan, and a cloud agent and code review built into GitHub.

Pick Cursor if…

Your team wants one AI-first editor, cloud agents that run in parallel on GitHub, GitLab, Bitbucket or Azure DevOps (including multi-repo tasks), Bugbot on any of those hosts, SAML/OIDC SSO without upgrading your GitHub plan, and analytics that show the AI share of committed code. Budget separately for Claude, GPT or Gemini: on Teams those bill at API list price plus the Cursor Token Rate.

Our verdict

For teams on GitHub that want broad model access at a predictable price, Copilot Business is the cheaper buy: $19/user/mo includes $19 of pooled usage on any model, plus IP indemnity and audit logs, and it works in nearly every IDE. Pick Cursor Teams ($30+/user/mo) for an AI-first editor, parallel cloud agents and Bugbot on GitHub, GitLab, Bitbucket and Azure DevOps, and SSO included in the seat. Copilot's SAML SSO and SCIM need GitHub Enterprise Cloud; Cursor keeps SCIM, audit logs and pooled usage for Enterprise.

Frequently asked questions

Does Copilot Business pool usage across the team?

Yes. Each Business seat adds 1,900 AI credits ($19) to one pool for the organization or enterprise, so heavy users can draw more while light users offset them. Cursor Teams doesn't pool: each seat has its own weekly pool, and pooled usage is Enterprise-only.

What replaced premium requests in GitHub Copilot?

GitHub AI Credits. Usage is priced per token by model and converted to credits at $0.01 each. Premium requests now apply only to Copilot Pro and Pro+ subscribers on an existing annual plan who stayed on legacy billing after June 1, 2026.

Is there an annual discount?

Neither vendor publishes one for these plans. GitHub lists Copilot Business at $19 and Enterprise at $39 per seat per month, and Cursor's pricing page lists monthly seat prices only.

Does Copilot's cloud agent work with GitLab or Bitbucket?

No. GitHub's docs say Copilot cloud agent only works with repositories hosted on GitHub. Cursor's cloud agents and Bugbot work with GitHub, GitLab, Bitbucket and Azure DevOps.

Which one includes SSO and SCIM?

Cursor Teams includes SAML/OIDC SSO; SCIM is Enterprise. Copilot Business lists SAML SSO, but on GitHub both SAML SSO and SCIM require your organization to be on GitHub Enterprise Cloud.

Facts and prices checked on vendor pages on Oct 16, 2026: GitHub Copilot plans and pricing, Plans for GitHub Copilot (docs), Copilot seats and billing cycles, Usage-based billing for organizations and enterprises, Copilot budgets, Copilot models and pricing, Copilot premium requests (legacy), Copilot code review, Copilot on GitHub.com and cloud agent, Managing access to Copilot cloud agent, Cloud agent environment and runners, Where to use GitHub Copilot, Copilot feature matrix, Copilot usage metrics, Copilot audit logs, GitHub SAML SSO, GitHub SCIM for organizations, GitHub pricing, Cursor pricing, Cursor Team Pricing docs, Cursor for Teams: get started, Cursor SSO, Cursor SCIM, Cursor usage analytics, Cursor Enterprise docs, Cursor privacy and data governance, Cursor Cloud Agents, Cursor Bugbot, Cursor CLI, Cursor in JetBrains (ACP), Cursor with Xcode, Cursor GitLab integration, Cursor Master Services Agreement. Plans and limits change often, so confirm before you buy.