Is co-pilot now mandatory to be paid? I used a trial for a long while, at least enough to miss it in my workflows once it went paid. Is this really the case? Last I checked it was like 12 dollars a month? Is it possible for it still to be free or are there free plug-ins for intellij that leverage it?

I loved it for some scaffolding, quick drafts or explore some language features, but, not enough to pay monthly for it (yet!)