GILD verdict
Choose GitHub Copilot for a new standard if your code lives on GitHub.
Choose Kiro, AWS's named successor, if AWS billing and IAM Identity Center sign-in decide your tooling. Teams already on Q Developer Pro can keep it until support ends; pilot the replacement on the same repositories first and compare accepted changes and total spend.
Copilot wins for any team buying now, because only Copilot stays on sale. The team seats otherwise match on paper: US$19 per user per month, IP indemnity, no training on team data, and plugins for VS Code, JetBrains IDEs, Visual Studio, and Eclipse. Copilot meters pooled AI credits and adds agents and code review on GitHub.com. Q Developer's IDE plugins end on April 30, 2027, and its AWS console assistant continues.
Choosing between Amazon Q Developer and GitHub Copilot
Choose Amazon Q Developer if
- You already hold Pro seats and need a working assistant through April 2027 while you plan the move.
- Engineers ask about AWS resources, costs, and console errors in the AWS console every day.
- You want seats billed on the AWS account and signed in through IAM Identity Center.
Choose GitHub Copilot if
- You are choosing a new assistant today, since Q Developer takes no new sign-ups.
- Your code and reviews live on GitHub and you want issues assigned to an agent that opens pull requests.
- Engineers also work in Xcode or Zed, which Copilot supports and Q Developer does not.
Side by side
| Dimension | Amazon Q Developer | GitHub Copilot |
|---|---|---|
| Status | No new IDE Free accounts or Pro subscriptions since May 15, 2026; IDE plugins and paid subscriptions end support April 30, 2027 | On sale on every plan |
| Where it runs | VS Code, JetBrains IDEs, Visual Studio, and Eclipse; the AWS console, mobile app, Slack, and Microsoft Teams; GitHub before general availability. The CLI is now Kiro CLI | VS Code, Visual Studio, JetBrains IDEs, Eclipse, Xcode, and more editors; GitHub.com, GitHub Mobile, Copilot CLI, and a cloud agent |
| Individual priceList prices in US dollars. Included usage differs by plan and is not directly comparable. | Free: US$0 with 50 agentic requests a month; closed to new sign-ups by AWS's end-of-support notice, still offered on its pricing page | Free: US$0; Pro US$10, Pro+ US$39, or Max US$100 per month |
| Team price | Pro: US$19 per user per month, for existing subscriptions only | Business: US$19 per granted seat per month with 1,900 AI credits; Enterprise: US$39 with 3,900 |
| How usage is metered | Pro caps agentic use at about 1,000 user requests a month (10,000 inference calls) with no overage; Java upgrade transformation includes 4,000 lines per user a month, pooled at the payer account, and extra lines cost US$0.003 per line29 | AI credits worth US$0.01 each, priced by model and pooled across the organization |
| AWS integration | Answers about the account's resources and costs in the AWS console, console error diagnosis, IAM Identity Center sign-in, and billing on the AWS account | None built in; GitHub sign-in and billing |
| IP indemnity | Pro only, under Section 50.10 of the AWS Service Terms; excluded on the Free tier | Business and Enterprise only |
| Training on your data | Pro content is not used; Free tier content may be used for service improvement and model training unless opted out | Business and Enterprise data is not used; Free, Pro, and Pro+ interactions may be used unless the user opts out |
| Pull request work | Amazon Q Developer for GitHub, which AWS has not yet made generally available, implements labeled issues and reviews new pull requests | Cloud agent works on assigned issues, and Copilot code review comments on pull requests |
What practitioners report, side by side
Each product's figures come from its own practitioners, for the group you pick.
Overall signal
Each product's own practitioners rate Amazon Q Developer +21, 10 points above GitHub Copilot at +11. Most of the gap is in praise, with 28 of Amazon Q Developer's 68 sources positive against 9 of GitHub Copilot's 32. Amazon Q Developer has 18 negative and GitHub Copilot 8.
The score counts the sources from each product's own practitioners that take a side and is how far positive votes lead negative ones, per 100 votes. A confirmed leader casts three votes, another confirmed practitioner two and any other source one, so Amazon Q Developer's +21 rests on votes split 34 positive, 26 mixed and 18 negative and GitHub Copilot's +11 on 16, 27 and 10. A lead of a fifth of the votes reads positive and a lead of half strong positive, with the same lines below zero. The dots show each source once, positive, mixed, negative. Use a task pilot to measure accepted work and review time.
Footprint on the Agentic Software Development stack
They differ on four of 12 layers. GitHub Copilot owns one that Amazon Q Developer does not. Coverage is each product's placement on this stack, as its product page shows it. Core is a job the product owns; Supports and Touches are jobs it helps with. Coverage says nothing about how well a product does them.
| Layer | Amazon Q Developer | GitHub Copilot |
|---|---|---|
| Plan | ||
| Work planning | Touches | Supports |
| Validate | ||
| Code review | Supports | Core |
| Ship | ||
| Source control | Touches | Supports |
| Operate | ||
| Observability | Supports | Touches |
The 8 layers where they match
| Layer | Amazon Q Developer | GitHub Copilot |
|---|---|---|
| Build | ||
| Codebase context | Supports | Supports |
| Coding | Core | Core |
| Agent runtime | Core | Core |
| Tool execution | Supports | Supports |
| Validate | ||
| Debugging | Supports | Supports |
| Testing | Supports | Supports |
| Application security | Supports | Supports |
| Ship | ||
| CI/CD | Touches | Touches |
What practitioners praise
Among all practitioners, GitHub Copilot alone has seven praise themes that reach 5 sources from 3 authors. GitHub Integration and Agent Execution lead, at 8 of 10 and 8 of 16. Amazon Q Developer alone has four praise themes that reach 5 sources from 3 authors. Agentic Coding and Terminal Workflow lead, at 20 of 21 and 13 of 14.
| Praised for | Amazon Q Developer | GitHub Copilot |
|---|---|---|
| Agentic Coding | 20 of 21 | Not a theme in its sources |
| Terminal Workflow | 13 of 14 | Not a theme in its sources |
| AWS Knowledge | 8 of 11 | Not a theme in its sources |
| Codebase Context | 2 of 7 | Not a theme in its sources |
| GitHub Integration | Not a theme in its sources | 8 of 10 |
| Agent Execution | Not a theme in its sources | 8 of 16 |
| Inline Completions | 0 of 2 so far | 7 of 8 |
| Editor Integration | Not a theme in its sources | 6 of 6 |
| Value for Money | Not a theme in its sources | 5 of 9 |
| Code Quality | Not a theme in its sources | 4 of 10 |
| Enterprise Administration | Not a theme in its sources | 3 of 7 |
Each count is the sources that praise a theme, or raise it as a concern, out of those that discuss it. A row pairs the two products when both carry a theme under the same or an equivalent name. A count ending in "so far" has under 5 sources from 3 authors among all practitioners. "Not a theme in its sources" means GILD found no theme of that name in that product's sources.
What practitioners raise as concerns
GitHub Copilot's sources raise Limits & Cost more often than Amazon Q Developer's. It is raised in 0 of the 8 Amazon Q Developer sources that discuss it, against 7 of 19 for GitHub Copilot. Amazon Q Developer alone has four concern themes that reach 5 sources from 3 authors. Answer Quality and Stability lead, at 11 of 11 and 10 of 10. GitHub Copilot alone has three concern themes that reach 5 sources from 3 authors. Quality Against Alternatives and Measuring Impact lead, at 8 of 13 and 5 of 13.
| Raised as a concern | Amazon Q Developer | GitHub Copilot |
|---|---|---|
| Requires Strong Review | 6 of 7 | 6 of 11 |
| Needs Close Steering | 2 of 5 | 4 of 8 |
| Limits & Cost | 0 of 8 | 7 of 19 |
| Answer Quality | 11 of 11 | Not a theme in its sources |
| Stability | 10 of 10 | Not a theme in its sources |
| Product Direction | 7 of 7 | Not a theme in its sources |
| Sign-in & Setup | 5 of 5 | Not a theme in its sources |
| Quality Against Alternatives | Not a theme in its sources | 8 of 13 |
| Measuring Impact | Not a theme in its sources | 5 of 13 |
| Data, IP & Security | Not a theme in its sources | 2 of 6 |
14 sources
- AWS DevOps Blog: Amazon Q Developer end-of-support announcement (Apr 30, 2026)
- Amazon Q Developer pricing
- Amazon Q Developer docs: Using Amazon Q Developer in the IDE
- Amazon Q Developer docs: Using Amazon Q Developer on AWS apps and websites
- Amazon Q Developer docs: Amazon Q Developer for GitHub (Preview)
- Amazon Q Developer docs: Service improvement
- AWS Service Terms (Section 50, Amazon Q and Kiro)
- Amazon Q Developer docs: Using Amazon Q Developer on the command line
- AWS: Amazon Q Developer FAQs (Kiro and pricing sections)
- GitHub Copilot plans & pricing
- GitHub Copilot docs: Plans
- GitHub Copilot docs: Where to use GitHub Copilot
- GitHub Copilot docs: Copilot on GitHub.com and the cloud agent
- GitHub Copilot docs: Copilot code review