Several products under one name: an inline completion extension, a chat surface, a CLI, and Copilot cloud agent, a hosted agent that can be assigned a whole task.
Our description, from the vendor's documentation, as of 2026-09-23.
Runs onThe places the vendor's own pages say the product runs: your machine, a container environment you run, or a cloud service the vendor runs. It is not a limit.
Models runWhere the vendor's own pages say the product's models run, not a limit: your machine, a container environment you run, the model company's cloud (servers of the company that makes or serves the model), or a cloud provider's model service. For a cloud, read the data and compliance lines of the company running it, linked by its name.
Several providers in one sessionOne session can use models from different providers, for example one agent on one maker's model and another on a second maker's. Switching the single model for the whole session does not count on its own. A tool that is itself a gateway or library routing to the providers its page names counts.
Several endpoints built inThe tool itself can hold more than one provider or address, so nothing has to sit in front of it to reach different providers.
Local and cloud togetherA local model (on your machine or in a container environment you run) and a cloud model (in its model company's cloud or a cloud provider's model service) can both be used in the same session or setup.
Use a local model: How to set it up(docs.github.com page, read 2026-10-22) Settings the guide names: COPILOT_PROVIDER_BASE_URL, COPILOT_PROVIDER_TYPE, COPILOT_OFFLINE.
Use a local and a cloud model together: How to set it up(docs.github.com page, read 2026-10-22) Settings the guide names: COPILOT_PROVIDER_BASE_URL, COPILOT_MODEL, --model.
Hold several endpoints in the product: How to set it up(docs.github.com page, read 2026-10-22) Settings the guide names: COPILOT_PROVIDER_BASE_URL, COPILOT_PROVIDER_TYPE, COPILOT_PROVIDER_API_KEY, COPILOT_MODEL.
Same role (harness / agent client) at the same layer (Coding agents and assistants). Up to 4 others, in alphabetical order; nothing is ranked.
Product
Several providersOne session can use models from different providers, for example one agent on one maker's model and another on a second maker's. Switching the single model for the whole session does not count on its own. A tool that is itself a gateway or library routing to the providers its page names counts.
Several endpointsThe tool itself can hold more than one provider or address, so nothing has to sit in front of it to reach different providers.
Model on your machineThe tool can use a model running on your own computer, for example through Ollama, LM Studio, oMLX or llama.cpp.
Local and cloudA local model (on your machine or in a container environment you run) and a cloud model (in its model company's cloud or a cloud provider's model service) can both be used in the same session or setup.
Words in the cells: YesA page we read says so., PartlyA page says part of it, for example separate models per agent without saying the providers can differ., Via a proxyOnly with a proxy, or a local server that imitates a cloud provider's interface, in front of the tool., NoA page we read says the product does not support it., ClaimedA vendor page says so on a marketing or overview page, and we found no guide showing how to set it up., Not foundWe read pages for it and found nothing there. It says nothing about whether the product has the feature., n/aThe question does not apply to the product, for example because it is a model server and not a tool that connects to models., BlankNothing is published for it yet.
Data and compliance
Compliance: SOC 2 Type II; ISO/IEC 42001:2023.
Data: Training use only on some plans or optionsNothing found covers the product as a whole; what was found holds only for the plans, options or regions named. (Copilot Business, Enterprise); default retention and data residency stated for the whole companyThe only sentence found is about the maker as a whole and names no product, so check on the page whether it covers this one.; zero-retention option page could not be readA page that could answer returned no readable text..
Model and where it runs: Installed: an IDE extension; model provider only on some plans or optionsNothing found covers the product as a whole; what was found holds only for the plans, options or regions named. (Custom API keys (BYOK), GitHub Enterprise Cloud with data residency); where it can run only on some plans or optionsNothing found covers the product as a whole; what was found holds only for the plans, options or regions named. (Custom API keys (BYOK)).
Compliance: For GitHub Copilot, SOC 2 Type II; ISO/IEC 42001:2023.
Data: For GitHub Copilot, training use only on some plans or optionsNothing found covers the product as a whole; what was found holds only for the plans, options or regions named. (Copilot Business, Enterprise); default retention and data residency stated for the whole companyThe only sentence found is about the maker as a whole and names no product, so check on the page whether it covers this one.; zero-retention option page could not be readA page that could answer returned no readable text..
Model and where it runs: Hosted by the maker; for GitHub Copilot, model provider only on some plans or optionsNothing found covers the product as a whole; what was found holds only for the plans, options or regions named. (Custom API keys (BYOK), GitHub Enterprise Cloud with data residency); where it can run only on some plans or optionsNothing found covers the product as a whole; what was found holds only for the plans, options or regions named. (Custom API keys (BYOK)).
Our summary of the vendor's pages as of the dates shown on each line (2026-10-19 to 2026-10-24); confirm on the vendor's page.
Local models
GitHub's bring-your-own-key page says Copilot can use models of the user's choice, whether running on the user's machine or hosted by another provider; for Business and Enterprise plans an enterprise or organization policy can turn off local bring-your-own-key in IDEs. (docs.github.com page, read 2026-10-19)
Local and cloud models in one session
Copilot CLI can be configured to use models from a chosen LLM provider via BYOK, in addition to GitHub-hosted models, including locally running models like Ollama. (docs.github.com page, read 2026-10-19)
What you set up
You set environment variables to define the model provider before launching Copilot CLI. (docs.github.com page, read 2026-10-19)
Copilot CLI's page says a model must support tool calling and streaming or the CLI returns an error, and it advises a model with at least 128k tokens of context. (docs.github.com page, read 2026-10-19)
Models from different providers in one session
GitHub's page on changing the Copilot Chat model says the model can be switched partway through a chat, and the model switched to then answers later prompts. (docs.github.com page, read 2026-10-23)
GitHub's page on changing the Copilot Chat model lists model providers, Anthropic, Gemini and OpenAI among them, as a source from which more models can be added to Copilot Chat. (docs.github.com page, read 2026-10-23)
Several endpoints, built in (no proxy)
In GitHub Copilot CLI's bring-your-own-key setup, the required COPILOT_PROVIDER_BASE_URL variable holds the base URL of the model provider's API endpoint. (docs.github.com page, read 2026-10-21)
Plan or account
GitHub's page says its local bring-your-own-key mechanism removes the need for GitHub's Copilot API, and describes it as suitable for air-gapped environments and for people without a Copilot subscription. (docs.github.com page, read 2026-10-21)
A separate model for planning and for doing
GitHub's page on creating custom agents says a model property in an agent profile can choose which AI model the agent uses when the profile is created and used in Xcode, Eclipse, JetBrains IDEs or VS Code. (docs.github.com page, read 2026-10-23)
Works with other products
GitHub's Copilot CLI bring-your-own-key page gives one set of setup steps for OpenAI, Ollama, vLLM and Foundry Local, and for other endpoints that speak the OpenAI Chat Completions API. (docs.github.com page, read 2026-10-19)
About the product
GitHub's documentation says the Copilot command-line interface lets the user work with Copilot directly from a terminal. (docs.github.com page, read 2026-10-24)
GitHub's documentation says the Copilot cloud agent is able to edit files, and to run tests and linters, in a short-lived cloud development environment rather than the user's local IDE. (docs.github.com page, read 2026-10-24)
Attribution
Some lines here restate, in the catalog's own words, pages licensed under Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International: docs.github.com, by GitHub, Inc. (license stated on this github.com page, read 2026-09-27). Each license applies as its page states it. Our lines are summaries, not the publisher's text, and GitHub, Inc. does not endorse them.
Our reading of vendors' pages, as of the dates shown. Confirm on the vendor's page before relying on any line that cites it. To report an error write to report@crinaro.ai