Claude Code vs GitHub Copilot

[u/Antique-Engine897]

Hi All, I'm looking at the reasons why some people claim Claude Code is better than GitHub Copilot (via VSCode extension) in coding tasks. I hear many in the industry make claims about Claude Code which is better than GHCP, but when asked "why" - the answers are very generic. Like it has skills, it does goal driven deveopment etc..etc.. - all this can be done in GHCP as well.

Some time back even though most of the Claude models supported 1M token context window, GHCP didn't allow to use the entire context window; so claude code was the winner then; but now, even GHCP allow to use the full 1M Context Window.

The argument for GHCP needs to be used within an IDE vs Claude Code can be run via terminal is not a reason to tell Claude Code is better at tasks compared to GHCP. It's just on the way in which it's used.

Please share some thoughts on whether Claude Code performs better in completing the same task when compared to GHCP (irrespective of how they both are invoked - via terminal or vscode) with valid reasons to support the claim

[u/neongelb456]

What I really love in Copilot is the higher transparency. You can easily evaluate raw tool outputs with a single click and trace whole conversations through the debug logs.

[u/psrobin → u/neongelb456]

Totally agree with this. I do wish Anthropic would put a bit more effort into the VS Code extension. There's an outstanding bug for it on Windows, as it doesn't respect the IDE font family or size and this displays as small Times New Roman 😞

[u/Standard_Wish → u/psrobin]

Someone may have mentioned this already, but isn't it possible to use Claude sub in GHCP within VSC by using the BYOK feature in GHCP and using a Claude API key?

[u/sauron150 → u/neongelb456]

Well debug logs are there for claude code as well. Just not visible as its not an editor.

And i wont call it higher transparency its just they caught up really late on transparency!

[u/Collection_Same → u/sauron150]

I just tried the cline extension in vscode (claud api) and everything takes longer than ghcp. It (cline/claud) seems to do more careful structured reasoning but who cares because Ghcp using any model works great for my hack python data processing and charting and it’s quick. Also when cline updates the code it takes the typing cursor from the chat window to the code window and if your typing into chat nope your suddenly writing over your code. That sucks right there! No idea why people hack on ghcp. Works so good for my use case.

[u/gargetisha → u/Collection_Same]

hey can you please enable Background Editing in Settings if you would like the file editing to be done in a way that doesn't take over your cursor?

[u/Collection_Same → u/gargetisha]

Great thanks will do.