Comparative Analysis of GitHub Copilot and ChatGPT in Web Application Development: An Experimental Study

Nowadays, the artificial intelligence has been rapidly developed and with this development has initiated the transformation of web development by changing the way students deal with code, problem solving and soft skills. The key innovations in this changing are AI tools like GitHub Copilot and ChatGPT which provides intelligent assistance in boost the productivity and learning. The GitHub Copilot is created by GitHub in collaboration with OpenAI, and it is integrated into Visual Studio Code, while ChatGPT is also created by OpenAI, but it facilitated interactive communication through chat and code explanation. Although, several studies treated the AI Tools in education especially ChatGPT but there is limited research comparing these two tools in web development tasks. This experimental study treats the usage of AI tools by students in web application development to show the impact on their learning, development and soft skills through a comparative analysis. Findings suggest both AI Tools integration in educational settings in terms of code generation, but in task completion ChatGPT is slightly faster than GitHub Copilot. While GitHub Copilot was found with stronger impact in collaboration, both tools are equally in critical thinking and adaptability. Based on these findings, this study provides recommendation for integration AI Tools in curriculum design and teaching strategies in computer science education.