Open source alternatives to GitHub Copilot

By GitHub stars it is Tabby, with 33,936 stars and a commit on 30 Jun. Choose Tabby when your code must stay on your own servers and you want to pick the completion model yourself. Next come Kilo Code (27,979 stars) and Refact.ai (3,529 stars).

Yes. The code of all 3 is public under Apache 2.0, MIT or BSD 3-Clause, so you can use them with no licence fee. Running one yourself costs the server and your time to look after it, and some makers also sell a hosted plan.

Start from the job you use GitHub Copilot for. Choose Refact.ai when you want an autonomous coding agent in your IDE that you can self-host under BSD. Choose Kilo Code when you want a VS Code or JetBrains agent that charges model use at provider rates, or runs free on your own keys.

All 3: Tabby, Kilo Code and Refact.ai. Each tool's page says what it needs to run.

1 of the 3 we track had a commit in the last 30 days, among them Kilo Code. The quietest is Refact.ai, last changed on 30 May. A recent commit shows the project is kept up, not that it will stay that way.

Apache 2.0 (1), MIT (1), BSD 3-Clause (1). MIT, BSD and Apache let you change and reuse the code freely.

The hosting. GitHub Copilot's maker runs the servers for you; with an open source tool the updates, backups, security fixes and support are yours, unless you take the maker's hosted plan. Features differ too, so check what each one imports and exports before you move your data.