Amazon Q Developer

Amazon Q Developer is AWS's generative AI-powered coding assistant, built to support developers across the full software development lifecycle from inside their existing IDE. It originated as a rebrand and expansion of AWS CodeWhisperer in April 2024, folding CodeWhisperer's core code-completion and security-scanning capabilities into a broader Q Developer product that added autonomous agents, conversational AWS resource management, and automated code transformation for legacy Java and .NET applications. The tool integrates directly into VS Code, JetBrains, Eclipse, Visual Studio, the AWS CLI, and the AWS Console, authenticated through IAM Identity Center.

Beyond standard inline code suggestions, Q Developer's standout capability has been large-scale code transformation: it can upgrade a Java 8 application to Java 17, or port a legacy .NET Framework app to .NET 8, rewriting thousands of lines and running tests automatically. Its agentic features let developers hand off multi-step tasks like implementing a new feature or refactoring a module, while its AWS-specific chat lets developers ask plain-language questions about their actual account resources, like listing running Lambda functions or diagnosing IAM permission errors, directly from the editor. MCP support extends this further, pulling in context from tools like Jira and Figma to enrich responses.

Important context for anyone evaluating this tool in 2026: in April 2026, AWS announced it is sunsetting Amazon Q Developer's IDE plugins and paid CLI subscriptions in favor of a new, ground-up successor called Kiro, a spec-driven agentic development environment. New Q Developer signups were blocked starting May 15, 2026, and full end-of-support for the IDE plugins and subscriptions arrives April 30, 2027. Existing Q Developer Pro subscribers retain access through that window and can continue adding seats, but starting May 29, 2026, the newest coding models are exclusive to Kiro, meaning Q Developer Pro will gradually fall behind on model quality even for active subscribers. The Q Developer experience inside the AWS Management Console, Docs website, Console Mobile App, and Slack/Teams integrations is unaffected by this change.

Given this transition, Amazon Q Developer is best understood today as a legacy AWS coding assistant in a defined wind-down period rather than a tool to newly adopt. Teams already using it inside the AWS ecosystem can continue safely through April 2027, but should start evaluating Kiro, or general-purpose alternatives like Claude Code, Cursor, or GitHub Copilot, well before the end-of-support deadline arrives.

Amazon 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.