Microsoft announced late at night that VSCode Copilot is completely open source, targeting Cursor!
Microsoft VS Code AI editor is open source, opening a new era of AI programming.
Core content:
1. VS Code AI assistant Copilot code is open source, based on MIT license
2. AI functions are gradually integrated into the core of VS Code to promote the development of open source AI ecology
3. Rival Cursor faces challenges, and the developer community is hotly discussing the impact of VS Code open source
Just now, Microsoft, the giant that we both love and "hate", suddenly announced a blockbuster news: Visual Studio Code (VS Code) will become an open source AI editor, and its core GitHub Copilot Chat extension code will be open source based on the MIT license!
Simply put, the core code of the chatbot part of Copilot, the AI assistant in VS Code, will be made public for everyone to see! Moreover, these AI functions will be gradually integrated into the core code of VS Code. What does this mean? Microsoft chose to write the future of AI programming with the word "open source".
What is Microsoft up to? Why is it open sourcing now?
According to the VS Code team in the official blog (https://code.visualstudio.com/blogs/2025/05/19/openSourceAIEditor), they chose to open source now for the following reasons:
• Large models are getting better and better : Large language models (LLMs) are improving so rapidly that the "secret" hint word strategies that used to be hidden are no longer necessary. • AI interaction experience convergence : The AI interaction interface and methods in mainstream editors are almost the same. Microsoft hopes that through open source, the community can continue to polish and innovate on this basis. • Support open source AI ecosystem : There are many open source AI tools and VS Code extensions. Open source Copilot Chat can help these developers build, debug, and test their extensions more easily. • Improve transparency : Many people are concerned about what data the AI editor collects. By making the code open source, everyone can directly see what Microsoft collects, which increases transparency. • Security issues : AI development tools are becoming a target for criminals. As an open source project, the power of the VS Code community has helped them quickly discover and fix many security issues.
Microsoft's goal is clear: to make contributing AI features as easy as contributing to any other part of VS Code. They will even open source their prompt testing infrastructure to ensure that community-submitted code passes the tests as well.
Netizens are furious! Is Cursor the biggest "victim"?
As soon as the news came out, the developer community exploded. Everyone commented one after another, and the most heated discussion was about Cursor , a new AI coding tool .
Guillermo Rauch, CEO of Vercel, expressed his gratitude to the VS Code team: "Thank you to the VS Code team for choosing open source from the beginning and for continuing to do so. Now is the best time to be a developer!"
Developer Sathvik PN also said: "VS Code has entered the battlefield! I have always liked and been accustomed to the user experience of VS Code, and its extension ecosystem is simply unbeatable. This move is highly anticipated."
However, more people are focusing on Cursor. As an editor with AI as its core, Cursor has attracted many users with its excellent experience. But now, the giant VS Code has come with the open source Copilot, and the pressure can be imagined.
Netizen Juan Stoppa posted a picture, suggesting that everyone will try to build something similar to Cursor.
Bohdan responded with a "sweating" emoji with the caption " Cursor team rn". This picture is amazing!
Some netizens also bluntly said:
• tsourdi.eth : "Cursor bankrupted you lmao" • Verious B. Smith III : "They're coming for Cursor" • NFLComedySkits : "I'm using Cursor now, maybe this will make me reconsider (going back to VS Code)."
It seems that this open source move of VS Code has indeed brought a great impact to Cursor. Some people even joked: "Is this the end of AI coding?", "Is there not much time left for Cursor?"
The future of AI coding: more open and more inclusive?
This move by Microsoft will have a profound impact on the entire field of AI coding.
First of all, for developers, this means that there may be more free or low-cost high-quality AI programming tools in the future. You can more easily customize and expand AI functions based on VS Code.
Secondly, open source also means greater transparency and wider community participation, which helps promote the rapid development and innovation of AI coding technology and solve some pain points in current AI tools.
Of course, there are challenges. For example, how to manage and maintain such a large open source project involving complex AI technology, and how to balance community contributions and product direction are all issues that Microsoft needs to think about.
In any case, the open source of VS Code Copilot indicates that AI-assisted programming is moving towards a more open and inclusive direction. This is undoubtedly good news for developers.
Last words
The VS Code team said: "We're excited to shape the future of development as an open source AI editor - we hope you'll join us and build in the open."
The wave of AI coding is unstoppable. The open source of Microsoft VS Code Copilot is undoubtedly a huge wave in this wave. How will it change the way we write code? How will emerging AI tools such as Cursor respond?
