GitHub Copilot costs $10-19/month. Claude Pro costs $20/month. You can get 80-90% of the same experience for free by running an AI coding model locally. Here are the best options in 2026.
The best free setups
1. Continue + Ollama + Qwen 2.5 Coder 32B (best quality)
The gold standard for free coding assistance. Qwen 2.5 Coder 32B scores 88.4% on HumanEval — matching GPT-4o.
Requirements: 24GB VRAM (RTX 4090) or 32GB Mac Setup time: 10 minutes
# Install Ollama
curl -fsSL https://ollama.com/install.sh | sh
# Download the model
ollama run qwen2.5-coder:32bThen install the Continue extension in VS Code, set provider to Ollama, model to qwen2.5-coder:32b. Done.
You now have:
- Inline code completion (tab to accept)
- Chat sidebar for code questions
- Code explanation and refactoring
- Test generation
- All running locally, zero data sent anywhere
2. Continue + Ollama + Codestral (best autocomplete)
Codestral scores 95.3% on FIM — the best autocomplete model available, including paid ones.
Requirements: 16GB VRAM or 16GB Mac Setup time: 10 minutes
ollama run codestralCodestral is specifically optimized for fill-in-the-middle, which is the task that powers inline suggestions. If autocomplete quality is your top priority, this beats Copilot.
Note: Codestral’s license restricts commercial use. For personal and open-source projects, it’s fine.
3. Continue + Ollama + Qwen3.5-9B (budget option)
If you don’t have a powerful GPU, Qwen3.5-9B runs on 8GB and still provides useful coding assistance.
Requirements: 8GB VRAM or 16GB Mac/laptop Setup time: 5 minutes
ollama run qwen3.5:9bNot as good as the 32B Coder model, but it handles code completion, explanation, and simple generation well enough for daily use.
4. Continue + Ollama + DeepSeek Coder V2 Lite (coding specialist)
DeepSeek Coder is trained specifically on code and supports 338 programming languages.
Requirements: 12GB VRAM Setup time: 5 minutes
ollama run deepseek-coder-v2:16bGood choice if you work with niche languages that other models struggle with.
How it compares to Copilot
| Feature | GitHub Copilot | Self-hosted (Qwen Coder 32B) |
|---|---|---|
| Price | $10-19/month | Free |
| Autocomplete quality | Very good | Very good (88.4% HumanEval) |
| Chat quality | GPT-4o level | GPT-4o level |
| Privacy | Code sent to Microsoft | Code stays on your machine |
| Offline | No | Yes |
| Speed | Fast (cloud) | Fast (local GPU) |
| Multi-file context | Good | Limited by VRAM |
| Setup | Install extension | Install Ollama + extension |
The main advantage of Copilot is multi-file context awareness and seamless integration. The main advantage of self-hosted is privacy and zero cost.
The optimal free setup
Use two models:
- Codestral for autocomplete — best FIM model available
- Qwen 2.5 Coder 32B for chat, code review, and generation
In Continue’s config, set Codestral as the autocomplete model and Qwen Coder as the chat model. This gives you the best of both worlds.
{
"tabAutocompleteModel": {
"title": "Codestral",
"provider": "ollama",
"model": "codestral"
},
"models": [
{
"title": "Qwen Coder",
"provider": "ollama",
"model": "qwen2.5-coder:32b"
}
]
}