Amazon Q Developer Review - Features, Pricing & Deals
Amazon Q Developer helps software teams write, review, and improve code using AI assistance. It works alongside developers in their preferred coding environments, offering suggestions and automating routine tasks throughout the development process.
This AI-powered tool integrates with common development platforms and AWS services, making it easier for teams to build and maintain their software projects. It can handle various tasks like generating code snippets, creating documentation, and spotting potential issues before they become problems.
Whether you're starting a new project or working with existing code, Amazon Q Developer offers support for common programming languages and frameworks. It can help with everything from writing unit tests to upgrading older applications. The tool comes in both free and paid versions, with the free tier offering a good starting point for smaller teams or individual developers.
For teams using AWS services, it provides extra benefits like troubleshooting AWS-related issues and accessing support directly through the platform. The tool works within popular code editors and can even connect with team communication tools like Slack and Microsoft Teams.
Online Reviews (Last 6 Months Summarised)
Amazon Q Developer has emerged as a promising tool for developers, offering significant productivity boosts through efficient code generation, testing, and refactoring. Its strong integration with AWS services and built-in security scanning features make it particularly attractive for developers already working within the AWS ecosystem.
However, the tool isn't without limitations. Some users point out that its effectiveness is heavily tied to AWS infrastructure, and it has restricted language support that might not suit all development environments. While generally helpful, developers emphasize the importance of human oversight to ensure the AI-generated code meets specific project requirements and maintains quality standards.
Features
- AI-Powered Code Generation: Provides real-time code suggestions and improvements, helping developers write efficient and high-quality code across multiple programming languages.
- Intelligent Code Refactoring: Automatically identifies and resolves code quality issues, debugs complex problems, and generates comprehensive unit tests to enhance software reliability.
- Automated Documentation: Generates detailed project documentation, including readme files and data flow diagrams, reducing manual documentation efforts for developers.
- Legacy Code Transformation: Helps developers upgrade and migrate applications, such as transforming Java versions or moving .NET applications between different platforms.
- Seamless IDE Integration: Works directly within popular development environments like Visual Studio, VS Code, and JetBrains IDEs for smooth workflow integration.
- AWS Service Support: Provides comprehensive support for AWS resources, enabling developers to build and manage cloud applications more efficiently.
- AI and Machine Learning Support: Assists in building analytics and AI applications by offering natural language querying and generative AI development capabilities.
Pricing
- Free version offers 50 chat interactions per month, 10 Amazon Q Developer Agent invocations, up to 1,000 lines of code transformation for Java upgrades, 25 AWS resource queries, error diagnosis, and limited access to public CLI completions.
- Pro version provides unlimited chat interactions, unlimited Amazon Q Developer Agent invocations, up to 4,000 lines of code transformation per month (with additional lines at $0.003 per line), unlimited AWS resource queries, generative SQL, and enterprise tools like analytics dashboard and user management.
- Pro tier pricing is $19 per user per month, pro-rated for the first month based on activation date, with flexible billing options for teams and organizations.
- Team pricing allows for scalable deployment, with costs adjusting based on the number of users and specific organizational needs, enabling businesses to optimize their Amazon Q Developer investment.
Frequently Asked Questions
The Free tier gives you 50 chat interactions per month, 10 agent invocations, and up to 1,000 lines of code transformation. The Pro tier costs $19 per user monthly and includes unlimited chat interactions, unlimited agent invocations, and up to 4,000 lines of code transformation. Pro also adds features like generative SQL and enterprise tools for managing users and policies.
Can I use Amazon Q Developer in my existing IDE?Yes! Amazon Q Developer works with popular IDEs like Visual Studio, Visual Studio Code, and JetBrains products. It's available as extensions that integrate directly into your coding environment, so you can get AI assistance without switching between tools.
Does Amazon Q Developer work offline or only in the cloud?Amazon Q Developer is a cloud-based service that needs an internet connection to work. It connects to AWS to process your requests and generate responses. There isn't currently an offline version that works without connectivity.
How secure is my code when using Amazon Q Developer?AWS designed Amazon Q Developer with security in mind. Your code isn't used to train the models, and Amazon Q has built-in security scanning features to help you find vulnerabilities in your code. For enterprise users, there are additional security controls available in the Pro tier.
Can Amazon Q Developer help me update my legacy applications?Absolutely! One of Amazon Q Developer's strengths is helping with code transformation projects. It can assist with upgrading Java versions, migrating .NET applications from Windows to Linux, and modernizing legacy codebases. The Free tier includes up to 1,000 lines of code transformation monthly, while Pro extends this to 4,000 lines.
