Amazon Q Developer Alternatives: Where to Move Before April 2027

If you're looking for Amazon Q Developer alternatives, you're probably on a clock. AWS's own end-of-support announcement says Q Developer's IDE plugins and paid subscriptions "will reach end of support on April 30, 2027." New Free Tier accounts and new subscriptions stopped on May 15, 2026. AWS's recommended destination is Kiro.

Kiro is the default move, but it isn't the right one for everyone. Q Developer did several different jobs, and each one has its own best replacement:

• Inline completions and chat in your IDE → Kiro, or GitHub Copilot if you're on Visual Studio or Eclipse
• Agentic coding in the terminal → Kiro CLI (the renamed Q Developer CLI) or Claude Code on Amazon Bedrock
• Help with AWS services → Q Developer in the AWS console (not affected), or the Agent Toolkit for AWS in any agent
• Code reviews and security scans → Amazon Inspector Code Security, or an agent-based review
• Java upgrades and .NET porting → AWS Transform

Here's what changes, what doesn't, and where each job should go.

Quick comparison

What actually ends on April 30, 2027

Search summaries flatten this into "Amazon Q is shutting down." It isn't. The cutoff is scoped:

Three details matter for planning:

1. Existing customers keep working until the deadline. AWS says current Pro subscribers keep IDE plugin access until April 30, 2027, can still add seats, and get critical bug fixes during the transition.
2. The newest models are already Kiro-only. Opus 4.6 left Q Developer Pro on May 29, 2026, and AWS says the latest coding models, including Opus 4.7, are available exclusively on Kiro.
3. Code reviews and code transformation live in the plugins. Q Developer's code review docs cover SAST, secrets detection, IaC checks and dependency analysis, and now carry the same end-of-support notice. AWS says Java upgrades and .NET porting run through the IDE plugins too, and "will no longer be accessible after April 30, 2027." Finish any in-flight transformations before then.

If you used Q Developer for completions and chat in your IDE

Kiro: the official path

Kiro is AWS's agentic development environment. Its migration guide for Q Developer users says the things you rely on today, "inline suggestions, chat, and code generation", are available in Kiro. On top of that you get steering files, hooks, custom subagents, agent skills and Powers. Spec-driven development, where Kiro writes requirements, a design and a task list before coding, is only in the Kiro IDE.

How it fits depends on your editor:

• VS Code users have the easiest move. Kiro IDE is built on the same VS Code foundation, and it offers to import your VS Code profile on first launch, so extensions, themes and keybindings carry over.
• JetBrains users don't get a native plugin. Instead, you install Kiro CLI and add it as a custom agent in JetBrains AI Assistant over the Agent Client Protocol (ACP).
• Visual Studio and Eclipse users are stuck. The guide says plainly that Kiro "does not have native plugins for either." Your options are switching to the Kiro IDE or running Kiro CLI next to your editor.

On cost, Kiro bills in credits. Its pricing page describes a perpetual free tier with a small monthly credit allowance, plus paid individual and team plans with larger allowances and add-on credits.

Pick Kiro if you're on VS Code or JetBrains, your company already runs on AWS, and you're open to spec-driven work. Our Kiro alternatives guide covers what people move to when the spec ceremony doesn't suit them.

GitHub Copilot: for Visual Studio, Eclipse and Xcode shops

If your team lives in Visual Studio or Eclipse, Kiro leaves a gap that Copilot fills. GitHub's supported models reference lists clients for VS Code, Visual Studio, Eclipse, Xcode and JetBrains IDEs, plus GitHub.com and Copilot CLI. A free Copilot plan exists for trying the core features. Paid plans are per seat, and usage beyond the basics is metered in AI credits.

You lose the AWS-specific tuning. In return, you get one assistant that works the same way in every editor your developers use. If Copilot is already approved at your company, that can settle it. Our GitHub Copilot alternatives roundup covers the editor-first tools around it, like Cursor and Devin Desktop (formerly Windsurf).

If you used Q Developer for agentic coding

Kiro CLI: the Q Developer CLI, renamed

If you ran q chat in your terminal, you've effectively already migrated. AWS's docs say the Amazon Q Developer CLI "has been rebranded to Kiro." Kiro's guide says q update moves you over, your prompts, agents, MCP settings and rules are copied from ~/.aws/amazonq into ~/.kiro, and the old q commands keep working.

The catch is the licence. The old Amazon Q CLI repository was Apache-2.0. Its README now says the project is no longer actively maintained, gets only critical security fixes, and that Kiro CLI is "a closed-source product." If you liked that Q's CLI was open source, Kiro CLI doesn't give you that.

Claude Code on Amazon Bedrock: keep the AWS bill

Many teams want an agent that's billed and governed through their AWS account, without committing to Kiro. Claude Code does that. Its Amazon Bedrock setup guide walks through a login wizard or environment variables (CLAUDE_CODE_USE_BEDROCK=1), using your normal AWS credential chain, SSO profiles or a Bedrock API key. Bedrock Guardrails can filter its output, and admins can pin model versions for the whole team.

One limit to know: the WebSearch tool isn't available on Bedrock. Model access, quotas and cost all come from your Bedrock account, so check that the Claude models you want are enabled in your region first.

Claude Code is the deeper agent of the two for long multi-file runs, with plan mode, hooks, skills and subagents. Kiro is the one with the built-in spec workflow. If you're weighing Claude Code against other terminal agents too, see Claude Code alternatives.

Cline: open source, with your own Bedrock keys

If you want an open-source agent and still want AWS billing, Cline's Bedrock provider docs cover connecting with a Bedrock API key, a scoped IAM policy, or SSO and federated roles. Cline is Apache-2.0 and runs as a VS Code extension, a JetBrains plugin, a CLI and a desktop app. You trade Kiro's polish for full control over which model runs and what it costs.

If you used Q Developer for help with AWS itself

This is the job that changes least. Amazon Q Developer in the AWS Management Console keeps working: AWS says the console and first-party AWS experiences aren't part of the end-of-support plan. If you mostly asked Q about IAM policies, error messages or service limits in the console, you don't need to move anything.

If you want that AWS knowledge inside a coding agent instead, look at the Agent Toolkit for AWS. It's AWS's own Apache-2.0 bundle of a managed AWS MCP Server (API access, sandboxed scripts, documentation search), agent skills and plugins. Plugins exist for Claude Code, Codex, Cursor and Devin; Kiro uses the MCP server plus skills. Its README also calls the toolkit the successor to the older AWS Labs MCP servers, so start there rather than with individual servers.

If you used Q Developer for code reviews and code transformation

These two jobs need dedicated tools, and coding assistants don't fully cover them.

Security scanning. Amazon Inspector Code Security scans first-party source code, third-party dependencies and Infrastructure as Code for vulnerabilities, on a schedule you set per repository. That's a closer match to Q Developer's SAST, SCA and IaC reviews than any chat assistant. If you'd rather have an agent review each change, our guide to Claude Code security review covers the /security-review command and its GitHub Action. Treat agent reviews as a second pair of eyes, not a replacement for a scanner.

Language upgrades. AWS points Java and .NET modernization to AWS Transform. Its product page covers .NET and SQL Server workloads, mainframe applications, and custom code work including Java, Node.js and Python upgrades. It's a migration service, not an IDE assistant, so expect a different workflow from Q's /transform.

Which Amazon Q Developer alternative should you pick?

Key points to take away:

• Q Developer's IDE plugins and paid subscriptions end on April 30, 2027. The console experience stays.
• Kiro is the official successor and covers completions, chat and agentic coding, but has no Visual Studio or Eclipse plugin.
• The Q Developer CLI is already Kiro CLI, and it went from open source to closed source.
• Code reviews and transformations end with the plugins. Replace them deliberately, with Inspector and AWS Transform.

When the setup is the hard part

Everything above is a developer tool aimed at a codebase. If you're the person on the team who uses AI workflows rather than builds them, the migration you need may be smaller. Taku is an AI-native desktop workspace where you mirror an AI app, agent or workflow someone already got working, run it, and keep it, without setting up a repo or API keys first. Taku is in Beta, and the Mac app is available now.

FAQ

Is Amazon Q Developer being discontinued?

Partly. The IDE plugins and paid subscriptions reach end of support on April 30, 2027, and new signups closed on May 15, 2026. Amazon Q Developer in the AWS Management Console and other first-party AWS experiences is not affected.

What is the best Amazon Q Developer alternative?

For most AWS teams on VS Code, Kiro, because it's the official successor and carries over completions, chat and agentic coding. Visual Studio and Eclipse teams should look at GitHub Copilot. Terminal-first teams that want AWS billing should try Claude Code on Amazon Bedrock.

What happened to CodeWhisperer?

AWS's CodeWhisperer docs say "All of the features of CodeWhisperer are moving to Amazon Q Developer," and existing subscriptions and customizations migrate in place. In the IDE, those features now ship in the Q Developer plugins, so the same April 30, 2027 end-of-support date applies. The replacements above are the CodeWhisperer alternatives too.

Is the Amazon Q Developer CLI still available?

It has been rebranded as Kiro CLI. Running q update moves you over, and the old q commands still work. The open-source Q CLI repository now gets only critical security fixes, and Kiro CLI is closed source.

Is there a free Amazon Q Developer alternative?

Kiro has a perpetual free tier with a monthly credit allowance, and GitHub Copilot has a free plan. Cline and the Agent Toolkit for AWS are free and open source, though you still pay for the models you use, for example through Amazon Bedrock.

What replaces Amazon Q Developer code transformation?

AWS points Java upgrades and .NET porting to AWS Transform. Q Developer's transformations run through the IDE plugins and stop working after April 30, 2027, so finish anything in progress before then.