Amazon Q Developer Review 2026: AWS-Native AI Coding Assistant

What Is Amazon Q Developer?

Amazon Q Developer is AWS’s AI coding assistant, available as an IDE extension for VS Code and JetBrains, and through AWS console surfaces like Lambda, CloudShell, and Cloud9. It provides code completion, chat, inline editing, and an agentic mode for multi-file tasks, all powered by Claude via AWS Bedrock.

What Sets It Apart

The standout differentiator is deep AWS service integration. Amazon Q Developer understands IAM policies, CloudFormation templates, CDK constructs, Step Functions, and Lambda configurations at a level that general-purpose coding tools cannot match. If your infrastructure runs on AWS, this contextual awareness translates to genuine productivity gains that no competitor offers.

Code transformation is another distinctive feature. Amazon Q Developer can migrate entire codebases between language versions — Java 8 to Java 17, .NET Framework to .NET Core — handling dependency updates, syntax changes, and API adjustments. For organizations maintaining legacy codebases, this automates some of the most tedious and error-prone upgrade work.

The free tier is notably generous, including agentic requests and code transformation. However, the value proposition drops sharply outside the AWS ecosystem. The core coding assistance is competent but not differentiated enough to choose over Copilot or Cursor purely on coding merit. The agentic mode is also newer than what Cursor or Claude Code offer, and complex multi-step tasks occasionally need more guidance.

Who It’s For

• Development teams building on AWS infrastructure who need service-aware coding assistance
• Enterprise organizations with existing AWS contracts and IAM governance
• Teams migrating legacy Java or .NET codebases to modern versions
• Not ideal for teams outside the AWS ecosystem, or terminal-first developers who prefer CLI agents

Sources

• Amazon Q Developer
• Documentation
• Pricing