A free, open-source GitHub Copilot alternative that runs locally
LocalPilot is a free GitHub Copilot and Cursor alternative for VS Code that runs entirely on your hardware with Ollama, LM Studio, llama.cpp or vLLM — agent mode, parallel agents, skills, screenshots and MCP without a subscription.
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If you want Copilot-class agentic coding without a subscription, usage limits, or sending source code to a third party, LocalPilot is built for exactly that.
Side by side
| LocalPilot | GitHub Copilot | Cursor | Claude Code | |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Runs fully offline / on-prem | Yes | No | No | No |
| Any local model (Ollama, LM Studio, vLLM…) | Yes | Limited (BYOK) | Limited | No |
| Agent mode with tools & approvals | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes |
| Parallel agents + per-agent change review | Yes | Partial | Yes | Yes |
| Skills & custom subagents | Yes | Yes | Rules only | Yes |
| Screenshots / vision | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes |
| MCP servers | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes |
| Works inside VS Code | Yes | Yes | Separate IDE | Yes |
| Price | Free, MIT | Subscription | Subscription | Usage-based |
| Account / telemetry | None | Required | Required | Required |
What you give up — honestly
- Frontier cloud models are still stronger than a 14B local model on the hardest tasks. A 32B coder model on a 24 GB+ GPU or Apple Silicon Mac closes most of the gap for day-to-day work.
- First-token latency depends on your hardware, not a data centre.
What you gain
- Privacy by construction — nothing leaves the machine unless you configure a remote server.
- No bills, no rate limits — run agents all day.
- Your existing rules carry over —
CLAUDE.md,AGENTS.md,.cursorrules,.github/copilot-instructions.md,.claude/skillsare read automatically. - It also plugs into Copilot Chat — LocalPilot registers your local models with VS Code’s Language Model API, so they appear in Copilot’s model picker too.
Try it
ollama pull qwen2.5-coder:14b
curl -L -o localpilot.vsix https://github.com/isathish/localpilot/releases/latest/download/localpilot.vsix
code --install-extension localpilot.vsix
Then: Getting started · Features · Compare on the home page