Unlock Your Code's Potential: 5 Powerful GitHub Copilot Alternatives
Published: 2023-12-17 03:48:42

GitHub Copilot, developed by Microsoft, is an innovative AI-driven collaboration tool designed to enhance developers' coding efficiency and accuracy. By leveraging its contextual awareness of the file being worked on and its connections to related files, Copilot offers autocomplete-style suggestions that streamline the coding process. Although Copilot is a prominent AI tool, there are also other alternatives available. This article will introduce you to five additional options to consider.
Getting started with GitHub Copilot is effortless. You can utilize this powerful tool by either typing the code you need or describing your desired functionality in natural language within your text editor. Copilot will then carefully analyze the context and provide relevant suggestions to aid you in your coding process.
Moreover, GitHub Copilot conveniently integrates with various popular IDEs such as Visual Studio Code, Visual Studio, NeoVim, and the JetBrains suite. To begin utilizing Copilot, simply install the extension in your preferred IDE and start benefiting from its capabilities.
While GitHub Copilot is a useful tool for developers, there are also several alternatives available that offer similar code completion features. Let’s now consider five of those, so you can decide what to use.


## 1. Codeium
Codeium is an AI-powered programming tool that seamlessly integrates with popular code editors and IDEs like Visual Studio Code, PyCharm, JetBrains, IntelliJ, Vim, Android Studio, and more. Its primary purpose is to empower developers to expedite code development through its advanced code suggestion feature. Moreover, it offers extensive support for multiple programming languages, including Python and JavaScript.
When you start typing a code fragment in Codeium, it instantly generates multiple code suggestions. If one of the suggestions aligns with your desired outcome, simply press the Tab button to automatically insert it into your code block. In case the suggested code appears different from what you intend, Codeium offers an impressive feature that enables you to cycle through various code suggestions. By hovering over the beginning of the suggested code block, you can access a Next and Previous toggle, allowing you to explore different suggestions and select the one that best fits your specific requirements.

The pros of Codeium include the following:

- Multiple programming language support

- Fast suggestions and a provision to cycle between alternate coding patterns

## 2. CodeGeex AI
CodeGeex AI is an AI-based multilingual development tool with code suggestions, auto-complete features, and code translations. It is an AI assistant that works alongside you to ensure you ship codes easier and faster. It is not restricted by programming languages, as it can convert your code into a different programming language.

Pros of CodeGeex AI:

- CodeGeex is powered by large code repositories of up to 20 programming languages.

- It also provides developers with a translation feature to convert code written in one programming language, to another.

## 3. Code Whisperer

Code Whisperer, developed by AWS, is a powerful tool designed to enhance developers' coding experiences with a range of features. This comprehensive tool includes AI-powered autocomplete, code documentation, and refactoring capabilities, providing developers with a robust coding environment.
With Code Whisperer, developers can seamlessly integrate Amazon Web Services (AWS) functionalities into their code. This includes leveraging AWS services like S3 buckets, containers, and more. The tool offers code suggestions and auto-completion tailored specifically for working with AWS, enabling developers to write code more efficiently and accurately when utilizing AWS resources.

Pros of Code Whisperer:

- Code Whisperer comes with an AWS toolkit extension, which in addition to Code Whisperer’s coding assistant feature, also provides you with easy access to view, modify and deploy AWS resources.

- Code Whisperer provides support for a wide range of programming languages.

Cons of Code Whisperer:

- Generally, it is a great alternative; it has no cons.

## 4. Tabnine

Tabnine revolutionizes the coding experience with its cutting-edge AI autocomplete functionality. As one of the early pioneers in the market, Tabnine's code completion tool offers a seamless integration with your preferred code editor. It empowers you to effortlessly complete code in any programming language, library, or framework of your choice.
What sets Tabnine apart from other AI models is its unique approach to data privacy. It exclusively trains its algorithms using open-source and permissive code, ensuring that your proprietary code remains confidential and secure.
By leveraging artificial intelligence, Tabnine analyzes the code you've written and intelligently suggests relevant words or phrases to assist you in your coding process. It seamlessly integrates with popular code editors such as Visual Studio Code, Sublime Text, and IntelliJ, allowing you to enjoy its exceptional capabilities across different environments. Moreover, Tabnine is highly adaptable and can be personalized to match your specific coding style.
Depending on your requirements and desired features, you have the option to choose between a free version or a paid subscription of Tabnine.

Pros of Tabnine :

- Tabnine can predict your next line of code and give you suggestions based on it.

- It comes with not only auto-complete features but also improved code quality because of its AI power.

- It covers almost all programming languages, from the most popular ones by coders to the more used ones in the tech industry.

Cons of Tabnine :

- Sometimes, it doesn’t give the exact suggestions.

- Beginners in coding might find it not easy to use at first.

- Based on its AI learning from code written, it might sometimes mix up one code for the other.

But in all, it is very awesome and useful. It has its cons due to its AI assistant having to learn from the code being written in the editor. Everyone learns, even AI,, so let’s not fault it.

## 5. Blackbox

Blackbox is an exceptional Visual Studio Code extension that provides advanced code completion and suggestions. What sets it apart is its remarkable ability to transform your coding questions into actual code within your editor. This unique feature allows you to seamlessly convert your queries into executable code snippets.

What makes Blackbox even more impressive is its wide compatibility with multiple programming languages. It intelligently adapts to the syntax and structure of each supported language, ensuring accurate and reliable code generation.

With Blackbox, you can confidently ask coding questions directly within your editor and witness them effortlessly transformed into functional code. It empowers developers to streamline their coding process and enhance productivity, all within the familiar environment of Visual Studio Code.

Pros of BlackBox:

- When coding, if you need a specific coding function and you don’t know how to implement it, ask Blackbox, and its AI will get the implementation of the coding function for you.

- It works with all programming languages.

- It has a feature that allows you to copy code from videos you watch, which is useful while learning.

Cons of Blackbox:

- Like every other alternative to GitHub Copilot, you don’t expect every suggestion to be what you wanted.


## Conclusion

In their quest for alternatives to GitHub Copilot, developers can explore a range of code completion tools that offer valuable features and capabilities. It's important to note that most of these tools harness the power of AI, but it's essential to manage expectations as they may not always produce the exact desired outcome. Nevertheless, these tools prove to be valuable companions during the coding process, offering assistance and enhancing productivity