Skip to content
effecthub

Amazon Q Developer vs GitHub Copilot

Two fact sheets from our own research, side by side — pricing, platforms, API access and status re-checked by us rather than quoted from the vendors.

The short answer

Entry price
Amazon Q Developer from $19/seat/mo, GitHub Copilot from $10/mo — different billing units, so no direct winner
Free plan
Both have one
Best fit
Amazon Q Developer: Teams building on AWS who want console, CLI and IDE help that understands their account · GitHub Copilot: Teams standardising on one assistant across mixed IDEs and languages
Platforms
Amazon Q Developer: VS Code extension, Web, macOS, Windows, Linux, iOS, Android · GitHub Copilot: VS Code extension, Web, macOS, Windows, Linux
Trust score
About even — Amazon Q Developer 94, GitHub Copilot 94

From our own records as of each tool's last check. Anything we have not confirmed is left out rather than guessed. How we verify

Amazon Q DeveloperAWS's coding and operations assistant for IDEs, the terminal and the console, with its IDE plugins now on an end-of-support clock.GitHub CopilotInline completions, chat and coding agents across the major IDEs

Side by side

FactAmazon Q DeveloperGitHub Copilot
CategoryAI Coding AssistantsAI Coding Assistants
Pricing modelFreemiumFreemium
Starts at$19/seat/mo$10/mo
Trust score94 / 10094 / 100
PlatformsVS Code extension, Web, macOS, Windows, Linux, iOS, AndroidVS Code extension, Web, macOS, Windows, Linux
CompanyAmazon Web Services, Inc.GitHub, Inc.
Launched20242021
Last verifiedSep 6, 2026Sep 6, 2026

What our research says

Amazon Q Developer

If your code runs on AWS, Q Developer is the assistant that knows the services, the console and your account, and the free tier is generous enough to use daily. But AWS has announced the end of support for its IDE plugins on 30 April 2027 and is steering developers to Kiro, so adopting Q Developer in the editor today means planning a migration within eighteen months. Use it for the CLI, console and the Java and .NET transformation jobs, which have no equivalent elsewhere, and start new editor workflows on whatever AWS says replaces it.

Pros

  • Free tier with 50 agentic requests and 1,000 lines of transformation a month, no card
  • Transformation agents for Java upgrades and .NET-to-Linux porting that general assistants lack
  • Present in IDEs, CLI, console, mobile console app, Slack, Teams, GitHub and GitLab
  • Pro at $19 per user adds admin dashboards, pooled transformation lines and IP indemnity

Cons

  • End-of-support notice for the IDE plugins dated 30 April 2027, with Kiro named as the successor
  • Agentic request limits on Free and Pro are stated loosely rather than as a number on Pro
  • Value drops sharply outside AWS-centric codebases
  • No public API found for the assistant itself

GitHub Copilot

Still the least disruptive way to put an assistant in front of a whole engineering org, but the credit meter means the $10 tier is no longer a flat-rate promise once anyone starts using agents seriously.

Pros

  • Broadest IDE coverage of any assistant: VS Code, Visual Studio, JetBrains, Neovim, Xcode
  • Free tier is real and needs no card, which makes org-wide trials trivial
  • Unlimited completions on every paid tier, so the meter only touches the expensive work

Cons

  • Four individual tiers from $10 to $100 make it hard to predict what a team actually costs
  • Credits are consumed by premium models at very different rates, so budgeting is guesswork
  • IP indemnity is Business-and-up only, which is often the deciding factor for enterprises

Which one fits

Choose Amazon Q Developer if you need

  • Teams building on AWS who want console, CLI and IDE help that understands their account
  • Java 8 and 11 estates and Windows .NET workloads that need bulk upgrade or porting
  • Enterprises that need IAM Identity Center controls and IP indemnity on an assistant

Choose GitHub Copilot if you need

  • Teams standardising on one assistant across mixed IDEs and languages
  • Organisations that need IP indemnity and admin policy control
  • Developers who mostly want completions and occasional chat

Amazon Q Developer vs GitHub Copilot: the questions people ask

Is Amazon Q Developer cheaper than GitHub Copilot?

They charge in different units, so there is no like-for-like answer: Amazon Q Developer starts at $19/seat/mo, GitHub Copilot at $10/mo. Entry price is the lowest paid plan as we last verified it.

Does Amazon Q Developer or GitHub Copilot have a free tier?

Both: Amazon Q Developer has a free tier, and GitHub Copilot has a free tier.

More comparisons

All Amazon Q Developer alternatives →All GitHub Copilot alternatives →Browse all AI Coding Assistants →