AI Tool Comparison
Comparing as AI Code Editors & IDEsAmazon Q Developer vs Zed
Amazon Q Developer
VS
Zed
Verdict by Category
Detailed Comparison
Feature
Amazon Q Developer
Zed
Pricing
FreemiumAmazon Q Developer offers a Free Tier at $0/month, including code suggestions in the IDE and CLI, reference tracking for open-source code, 50 agentic requests per month, up to 1,000 lines of Java code transformation, and limited security scanning. The Pro Tier costs $19 per user per month and adds enterprise access management with policies, the ability to customize Q Developer to a company's private codebase for better suggestions, IP indemnification, and significantly higher usage limits across all features. As of May 29, 2026, Q Developer Pro no longer receives access to the newest coding models (including Opus 4.6 and later), which are now exclusive to Kiro, AWS's successor product. New Q Developer account and subscription signups were blocked starting May 15, 2026; only existing subscriptions can add new seats going forward.
FreemiumZed offers three tiers. Personal is $0 forever, including 2,000 accepted edit predictions per month and unlimited use with your own API keys or external agents like Claude Agent and Codex CLI. Pro is $10/month with unlimited edit predictions, $5 of included tokens, and usage-based billing beyond that at API list price plus 10%, billed either at month-end or per $10 of overage incurred, whichever comes first; a two-week free trial with $20 of token credits is available (Anthropic's Opus models are excluded from the trial). Business is $30 per seat per month with no minimum seat count, adding org-wide AI model policies, data governance controls, role-based access controls, and unified spend visibility across the organization; order form contracts are available at 25+ seats. Business does not currently offer a free trial, and SSO, SAML, and SCIM are planned but not yet available.
Categories
AI Coding Assistants
AI Coding Assistants
Summary
AWS's generative AI coding assistant for the full software development lifecycle
A minimal, GPU-accelerated code editor built for speed and AI collaboration
Amazon Q Developer Pros & Cons
Pros
- Free tier includes genuinely useful code transformation and 50 agentic requests per month
- Deep, native AWS integration lets developers query live account resources directly from chat
- Automated Java and .NET version upgrades can save enterprise teams months of manual migration work
- Pro tier's flat $19/user/month price includes IP indemnification, competitive against similar enterprise tools
- AWS Console, Docs, and Slack/Teams integrations remain fully supported and unaffected by the IDE sunset
Cons
- AWS is sunsetting the product: new signups have been blocked since May 15, 2026, and the IDE plugins reach full end-of-support on April 30, 2027
- Latest coding models (including Opus 4.7 and newer) are exclusive to Kiro, AWS's replacement product, not available on Q Developer Pro
- Deepest value is tied to AWS-specific workflows; less compelling for teams not building on AWS
- No JetBrains-native experience going forward, since new investment is focused on Kiro
- Existing users face a forced migration to Kiro or a competitor within the next several months
Zed Pros & Cons
Pros
- Exceptionally fast, GPU-accelerated Rust editor with near-instant startup and low input latency
- Free Personal plan allows unlimited AI usage with your own API keys at no extra cost to Zed
- Native real-time multiplayer collaboration built into the core editor, not a plugin
- Open Agent Client Protocol (ACP) lets developers bring virtually any agent or model into the editor
- Fully open source, so the codebase can be inspected, extended, and self-hosted
Cons
- Much smaller extension ecosystem (roughly 800) compared to VS Code's 50,000+
- No codebase-wide AI indexing like some competitors, limiting AI context to file-level and open project scope
- SSO, SAML, and SCIM are planned but not yet available, limiting appeal for larger regulated enterprises
- Pro's $5 included token credit is modest and can be exceeded quickly with heavy agentic use, triggering usage-based billing
- Business plan has no free trial, unlike the Pro plan's two-week trial