Head to head

Claude Code vs GitHub Copilot

Comparing 45 documented Claude Code incidents against 6 for GitHub Copilot.

Verdict

Claude Code has the lower average failure severity (7.1/10 vs 7.8/10), making it the statistically safer choice of the two — though both agents have documented critical incidents.

Reliability metrics for Claude Code and GitHub Copilot
MetricClaude CodeGitHub Copilot
Documented incidents456
Average severity7.17.8
Critical103
High181
Verified436

Severity at a glance

Failure modes

Claude Code
Distribution of failure modes across all documented incidents.
GitHub Copilot
Distribution of failure modes across all documented incidents.

The incidents behind these numbers