Skip to content
effecthub

Amazon Q Developer vs Kiro

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, Kiro from $20/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 · Kiro: Large existing codebases where a chat assistant loses the thread
Platforms
Amazon Q Developer: VS Code extension, Web, macOS, Windows, Linux, iOS, Android · Kiro: Web, macOS, Windows, Linux
Trust score
About even — Amazon Q Developer 94, Kiro 91

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.KiroAWS's spec-driven agentic dev environment: a prompt becomes requirements, a design and sequenced tasks.

Side by side

FactAmazon Q DeveloperKiro
CategoryAI Coding AssistantsAI Code Editors & IDEs
Pricing modelFreemiumFreemium
Starts at$19/seat/mo$20/mo
Trust score94 / 10091 / 100
PlatformsVS Code extension, Web, macOS, Windows, Linux, iOS, AndroidWeb, macOS, Windows, Linux
CompanyAmazon Web Services, Inc.Amazon Web Services
Launched20242025
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

Kiro

The spec step is the whole argument: forcing a prompt through requirements, design and a task list before code is written gives you a review point that chat-based assistants never offer, and it holds up better on large codebases. Property-based testing and hooks are real additions rather than checkbox features. Credit metering means the advertised tier price is a floor, not a ceiling.

Pros

  • Specs turn a prompt into reviewable requirements, design and ordered tasks
  • Property-based test generation catches cases hand-written unit tests miss
  • Parallel agents work on separate tasks in the same session
  • Hooks run background jobs like test reruns and doc updates automatically
  • Available as IDE, CLI, web and mobile across Mac, Windows and Linux
  • Free tier of 50 credits a month that does not expire

Cons

  • Everything is credit-metered, so heavy agent runs outpace the tier price
  • The free 50 credits are enough to evaluate and little else
  • Top-up credits cost $0.04 each, which adds up quickly at agent scale
  • No public API for driving Kiro from outside its own surfaces
  • The spec workflow is overhead on small, well-understood changes

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 Kiro if you need

  • Large existing codebases where a chat assistant loses the thread
  • Teams that want a reviewable plan before an agent starts editing
  • Developers already inside the AWS account and identity ecosystem

Amazon Q Developer vs Kiro: the questions people ask

Is Amazon Q Developer cheaper than Kiro?

They charge in different units, so there is no like-for-like answer: Amazon Q Developer starts at $19/seat/mo, Kiro at $20/mo. Entry price is the lowest paid plan as we last verified it.

Does Amazon Q Developer or Kiro have a free tier?

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

More comparisons

All Amazon Q Developer alternatives →All Kiro alternatives →Browse all AI Coding Assistants →