Amazon Q Developer is AWS's AI coding assistant with deep AWS service knowledge, security scanning, and code transformation.
✓ Pros
- Unrivaled AWS service knowledge for infrastructure and SDK code
- Built-in security vulnerability scanning (SCA/SAST)
- Code transformation for Java upgrades and migration tasks
- Generous free tier for individual developers
✗ Cons
- Outside AWS contexts, weaker than GitHub Copilot or Cursor
- No JetBrains support (VS Code and AWS Cloud9 only)
- Agent capabilities less mature than Devin or Cursor
| Free tier | ✓ Free tier |
| Pricing model | subscription |
| Price (Pro) | $19 USD |
| Features | |
| API | ✗ Not available |
| Pricing Plans | Free$0/moCode completions, basic chat, 50 agent uses/mo Pro$19/user/moUnlimited agent, customization, security scans |
| Platforms | |
| Integrations | VS Code, AWS Cloud9, AWS Console, JetBrains (limited), CLI |
| Homepage | https://aws.amazon.com/q/developer/ |
AI Commentary
Amazon Q Developer (formerly CodeWhisperer) is the obvious choice for AWS-native development teams—its training on AWS SDK, CloudFormation, and CDK patterns makes it uniquely effective for cloud infrastructure code. The free tier is remarkably generous, including security scans that would cost money on competing platforms. Outside AWS contexts, it falls behind GitHub Copilot on general-purpose code quality. The Code Transformation feature for Java upgrades addresses a genuine enterprise pain point.