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Featured Tool · October–November 2026

GitHub, explained in plain English

What GitHub is, what it does, and how anyone, coder or not, can try it for free.

Free plan available

Facts checked October 22, 2026. Prices change; check github.com/pricing before you buy.

What GitHub is

GitHub is a website and service for storing, sharing and working together on code and other files. GitHub describes itself as “the complete developer platform to build, scale, and deliver secure software.” On its About page, GitHub reports more than 225 million developers, more than 4 million organizations and more than 800 million repositories, and says 90% of the Fortune 100 use it.[1]

Microsoft bought GitHub in 2018 for $7.5 billion in stock.[11]

Who needs it

GitHub is free to start, so the real question is whether you have files whose history or sharing matters. These are the groups it most often fits:

  • Developers and software teams. GitHub is built for storing code, reviewing changes through pull requests and automating tests and deployments.[5][6][7]
  • Small businesses with a website. Keeping your site’s files in a private repository gives you a saved history of every change, so a bad edit can be undone.[5] Simple sites can be hosted free with GitHub Pages.[4]
  • IT and tech support folks. Scripts and configuration files can live in a repo where each change is recorded with who made it and why.[5][8]
  • Students and learners. The Free plan includes unlimited public and private repositories, enough to practice and build a portfolio.[2]
  • Non-coders tracking documents. GitHub says a repository can hold “files, images, videos, or even other folders,” and that you don’t need to know how to code to use it.[8]

GitHub’s pricing page quotes customers including American Airlines, Ford, SAP, Spotify and Stripe.[2] If you only need to share a few documents with no change history, a regular cloud drive is probably simpler.

Git, the engine underneath

GitHub is built on Git, a free and open source “version control system,” released under the GNU General Public License version 2.0.[9] Version control keeps a saved history of every change to a set of files, so you can see who changed what and go back to an earlier version. Git was created in 2005 by the Linux development community, in particular Linus Torvalds, the creator of Linux.[10] Git is the tool; GitHub is a place on the internet to keep and share Git projects.

Commit: on GitHub, saved changes are called commits. Each one has a message explaining why the change was made.[8]

Repositories

A repository (“repo”) is the most basic element of GitHub: a place to store your code, your files and each file’s revision history.[5] A repo can be public (anyone can see it) or private (only you and people you invite).[2]

Pull requests

A pull request is a request to merge changes from one branch (a parallel version of the files) into another.[5] It shows the differences between the two, and collaborators can comment on or propose changes before anything is merged.[6][8] This review step is how most teams and open source projects on GitHub accept changes.

GitHub Actions

Actions runs automatic tasks when something happens in a repo, such as building and testing every pull request, deploying merged changes, or adding a label when someone opens an issue. Tasks can also run on a schedule or manually.[7] The Free plan includes 2,000 Actions minutes a month for private repos, and Actions minutes are free for public repos.[2]

GitHub Pages

Pages is a free website host for simple sites. It takes HTML, CSS and JavaScript files straight from a repository and publishes them, at an address like yourname.github.io or your own domain.[4] On the Free plan, Pages works with public repositories.[2]

Copilot, the AI part

GitHub Copilot is GitHub’s AI assistant for writing, explaining and reviewing code. GitHub calls it “an AI coding agent that helps you write, understand, and ship software.” It works on github.com, in code editors such as Visual Studio Code, and in the terminal.[3]

Copilot Free includes up to 2,000 code completions a month with limited chat and agent use. Paid individual plans are Pro at $10 a month, Pro+ at $39 a month and Max at $100 a month. Chat and agent work uses “GitHub AI Credits” (1 credit = $0.01).[3] GitHub says individual users’ Copilot data may be used to train its AI models unless they opt out in their Copilot settings.[3]

Free vs paid plans

Free$0Unlimited public and private repos, 2,000 Actions minutes/month, 500 MB Packages storage, community support.
Team$4per user/month. Adds required reviewers, code owners, Pages and wikis for private repos, 3,000 Actions minutes, web support.
Enterprisefrom $21per user/month. Adds single sign-on, audit logs, data residency, 50,000 Actions minutes.

GitHub lists the Team and Enterprise prices “for the first 12 months.” Copilot is priced separately.[2]

How a non-coder can start

GitHub’s official “Hello World” guide says you don’t need to know how to code, use the command line or install Git. In the browser you create a repo, make a branch (a copy to experiment in), edit and commit a file, then open and merge a pull request.[8]

Try it free in your browser

  1. Create a free account at github.com/signup.
  2. Click + (top right), then New repository. Name it hello-world, select Add a README file, and click Create repository.
  3. Click the main dropdown above the file list, type readme-edits, and click Create branch: readme-edits from main.
  4. Open README.md, click the pencil icon, write a bit about yourself, then click Commit changes (twice: once to open the box, once to confirm).
  5. Open the Pull requests tab, click New pull request, pick readme-edits to compare with main, and click Create pull request.
  6. Click Merge pull request, then Confirm merge. Your change is now on main.

Follow along with GitHub’s Hello World guide.

Sources

  1. GitHub, “About GitHub” (github.com/about)
  2. GitHub, “Plans & pricing” (checked Oct 22, 2026)
  3. GitHub, “Copilot plans & pricing” (checked Oct 22, 2026)
  4. GitHub Docs, “What is GitHub Pages?”
  5. GitHub Docs, “About repositories”
  6. GitHub Docs, “About pull requests”
  7. GitHub Docs, “Understanding GitHub Actions”
  8. GitHub Docs, “Hello World” quickstart
  9. Git project, “About Git” (git-scm.com)
  10. Pro Git book, “A Short History of Git”
  11. Microsoft, “Microsoft acquires GitHub”