GitHub

GitHub provides a software development platform where developers share code and collaborate on projects, including proprietary software, while tracking one another’s changes. GitHub Copilot adds AI coding capabilities with access to models from Microsoft, OpenAI, and Anthropic. The product family also includes a desktop app introduced in 2026 for working with coding agents.

Founded in 2008, GitHub’s co-founders are Chris Wanstrath, Tom Preston-Werner, PJ Hyett, and Scott Chacon. Its origins lie in making collaboration through Git version control easier. Chief Product Officer Mario Rodriguez oversees its product portfolio and AI/Copilot strategy. GitHub’s engineering contributions include Tree-sitter, developed for the Atom editor: it incrementally maintains a syntax tree as code changes, supporting syntax highlighting, folding, and structural selection without reparsing the entire file.

Microsoft completed its acquisition of GitHub in 2018 in a $7.5 billion transaction. In July 2026, Microsoft reported 225 million GitHub users, adoption by over 90% of the Fortune 500, and 50 million Copilot users. Copilot’s commercial offering combines Business and Enterprise seats with usage-based billing, introduced in 2026, connecting its business to both organizational subscriptions and consumption.