Amazon CodeWhisperer was rebranded to Amazon Q Developer in April 2024 — the name “CodeWhisperer” hasn’t applied to an active AWS product in over two years. AWS has since gone further: it’s already announced that Amazon Q Developer’s IDE plugins will be discontinued on April 30, 2027, pointing developers toward a newer tool called Kiro instead.
Here’s what each of these actually is, what they cost, and which one to reach for if you’re starting from scratch today.
What Is Amazon Q Developer?
Amazon Q Developer is AWS’s generative AI coding assistant — a conversational tool that works inside your IDE, the CLI, or the AWS Console. In an IDE, it provides inline code completions, generates new code from natural-language prompts, chats about your codebase, scans for security vulnerabilities, and handles language upgrades and debugging. It’s built on Amazon Bedrock and runs in VS Code, JetBrains IDEs, Visual Studio, and Eclipse (preview).
That’s a real, functioning AI coding tool — not a human consulting service. (An earlier version of this article described CodeWhisperer as a program where “seasoned AWS engineers” manually review your code and are reached through your “AWS account manager.” That was inaccurate — CodeWhisperer, and now Q Developer, is a self-serve AI tool you install as an extension, not a managed service you contact AWS to enroll in.)
Amazon Q Developer Pricing
The Free tier includes 50 agentic requests per month, access to Claude models, and works in your IDE or CLI at no cost. The Pro tier is $19/month per user and adds higher request limits, an admin dashboard, IP indemnity, and increased limits for Java/.NET app transformation (4,000 lines of code per user monthly, pooled at the account level).
What Is Kiro, and Why Does It Matter for This Article?
Kiro is AWS’s newer agentic development platform, built around “spec-driven development” — it turns a prompt into a documented requirements list, an architectural design, and a sequenced set of tasks before any code gets written, rather than generating code directly from a conversational prompt. It runs as a desktop IDE (based on Code OSS, compatible with VS Code settings and Open VSX extensions), a CLI, a web platform with cloud sandboxes, and a mobile app. Kiro Crew, added in August 2026, is an open-source workspace that lets you assign asynchronous coding tasks to autonomous agents that keep working after you close your laptop.
Kiro runs on Claude (Opus, Sonnet, and Haiku variants) via Amazon Bedrock, plus Deepseek v3.2 and MiniMax M2.5, with an “Auto” mode that picks a model based on task complexity, cost, and latency.
Kiro Pricing
| Tier | Price | Monthly Credits |
|---|---|---|
| Free | $0 | 50 |
| Pro | $20/user/mo | 1,000 |
| Pro+ | $40/user/mo | 2,000 |
| Pro Max | $100/user/mo | 5,000 |
| Power | $200/user/mo | 10,000 |
Additional credits beyond your plan’s monthly allocation cost $0.04 each; unused add-on credits roll over and expire 12 months after purchase. The Free tier is capped to open-weight models plus Claude Sonnet 4.5.
Should You Use Amazon Q Developer or Kiro?
If you’re already using Amazon Q Developer’s IDE plugin day to day, there’s no urgency — support runs through April 2027, so you have time to migrate on your own schedule. But if you’re picking a tool for the first time, starting with Kiro makes more sense: AWS is directing its own users there, and the spec-driven workflow gives you a documented plan you can review before an agent starts writing code, which matters more as AI-generated code needs to survive code review from people who didn’t write the prompt.
Q Developer still has a role where Kiro doesn’t fully replace it yet: quick, chat-based Q&A inside the AWS Console about your actual deployed resources, and inline completions in IDEs Kiro doesn’t cover (Eclipse, for instance).
Frequently Asked Questions
Q: Does Amazon CodeWhisperer still exist?
A: Not under that name. It was rebranded to Amazon Q Developer in April 2024. Any AWS documentation or extension referring to “CodeWhisperer” today is either outdated or referring to the legacy name in a historical context.
Q: Is Amazon Q Developer being discontinued?
A: Its IDE plugins specifically are scheduled for end of support on April 30, 2027. AWS’s own guidance points users toward Kiro for agentic coding, chat, and MCP support going forward.
Q: Is Kiro free to use?
A: Yes — the Free tier gives you 50 credits a month and access to open-weight models plus Claude Sonnet 4.5, no payment required.
Q: What does “spec-driven development” mean in Kiro?
A: Instead of an agent writing code straight from your prompt, Kiro first generates a requirements document, an architectural design, and a task list for you to review — then agents implement against that plan.
Quick Summary:
- Amazon CodeWhisperer was rebranded to Amazon Q Developer in April 2024 — the old name hasn’t been active in over two years
- Amazon Q Developer IDE plugins are scheduled for end of support on April 30, 2027; AWS already points users to Kiro instead
- Q Developer: Free tier (50 agentic requests/mo) or Pro at $19/user/month
- Kiro: Free ($0) through Power ($200/user/mo), spec-driven agentic development with Kiro Crew for autonomous multi-agent work
- Starting fresh today, AWS’s own direction points to Kiro over Q Developer’s IDE plugins
If you’re evaluating AI coding tools broadly rather than staying AWS-only, see our Cursor vs GitHub Copilot comparison for how the two most-used non-AWS options stack up.