AWS has announced that Amazon Q Developer IDE plugins and paid subscriptions reach end of support on 30 April 2027, and new sign-ups already stopped on 15 May 2026. Teams that rely on Q Developer for inline suggestions, chat, agentic coding or Java and .NET transformations need a dated plan for where each of those jobs goes next. This page sets out the official timeline, what is and is not affected, the migration routes AWS names (Kiro for the IDE and CLI experience, AWS Transform for code transformation), how to find the users and repositories that depend on Q Developer, and what to test before switching. It is written for developers, platform engineers and the administrators who manage Q Developer Pro subscriptions. Every fact comes from AWS and Kiro's own announcement, documentation and pricing pages. Last checked: 2026-11-15.
This is an independent guide from NHI Mgmt Group, based on AWS's public Amazon Q Developer documentation as of November 2026. It is not sponsored or reviewed by AWS. Product features change, so confirm settings against AWS's current documentation.
Key takeaways
- The end date is 30 April 2027. AWS's announcement of 30 April 2026 (last modified 10 June 2026) states that Q Developer IDE plugins and paid subscriptions "will reach end of support on April 30, 2027", giving customers 12 months to move.
- New accounts stopped on 15 May 2026. New Free Tier accounts through Builder ID in the IDE plugins and new subscriptions through the AWS Console are blocked from that date; existing Pro subscriptions can still add seats.
- Not every Q surface is affected. Q Developer in the AWS Management Console, the AWS Console Mobile App, the AWS Marketing and Documentation websites, and Q Developer in Slack and Microsoft Teams are outside the end-of-support scope.
- Kiro is the named successor for the IDE and CLI. AWS points IDE users to Kiro, and the Q Developer CLI already became the Kiro CLI in November 2025, with existing configuration copied across on install.
- Transformations move to AWS Transform. Java upgrades and .NET porting in the plugins "will no longer be accessible after April 30, 2027"; AWS Transform custom (usage-based) and AWS Transform Windows modernisation are the stated replacements.
What is Amazon Q Developer?
AWS's user guide describes Amazon Q Developer as a generative AI conversational assistant for understanding, building, extending and operating AWS applications, built on Amazon Bedrock. It reached developers through several surfaces: extensions for Visual Studio Code, JetBrains IDEs, the AWS Toolkit for Visual Studio and Eclipse (Preview); a command line tool; a chat experience in the AWS Management Console and the AWS Console Mobile Application; and a chat integration for Slack and Microsoft Teams. Q Developer's IDE features cover chat about code, inline code completions, code generation, security scanning of code, and code upgrades such as Java version upgrades and .NET porting.
The end-of-support announcement applies to only part of that footprint, which is why many organisations find the scope confusing. The IDE plugins and the paid subscription end. The console chat continues, and AWS's documentation now says the console and mobile app conversational experience "is now the AWS assistant", while the AWS Marketing website experience is now Ask AWS and the AWS Documentation website experience is now the AWS documentation assistant. The same documentation states that "Amazon Q Developer in the IDE and on the command line keeps its name". The command line tool itself was succeeded by the Kiro CLI on 17 November 2025.
For the identity and logging side of Q Developer and Kiro (IAM Identity Center, Builder ID, credentials the agent can reach), see the Amazon Q Developer and Kiro Security Guide. For Kiro's own plans, features and history, see the Kiro guide.
Key facts at a glance
As of 15 November 2026, from AWS and Kiro pages.
| Field | Value | Source page |
|---|---|---|
| Owner | Amazon Web Services | AWS user guide |
| Status | End of support announced 30 April 2026; IDE plugins listed with a deprecation notice | AWS DevOps blog |
| New sign-ups closed | 15 May 2026 (new Builder ID Free Tier accounts and new console subscriptions) | AWS DevOps blog |
| End of support | 30 April 2027 for IDE plugins and paid subscriptions | AWS DevOps blog; Q Developer user guide |
| Transformations in plugins | Java upgrades and .NET porting no longer accessible after 30 April 2027 | AWS DevOps blog |
| IDEs affected | VS Code, JetBrains, Eclipse, Visual Studio | AWS DevOps blog |
| Surfaces not affected | AWS Management Console, AWS Console Mobile App, AWS Marketing and Documentation websites, Slack and Microsoft Teams | AWS DevOps blog |
| Command line | Kiro CLI available 17 November 2025; Q CLI auto-update to Kiro CLI scheduled 24 November 2025 | Kiro docs: Upgrading from Q CLI |
| IDE successor | Kiro (IDE and CLI) | AWS DevOps blog; Q Developer user guide |
| Transformation successor | AWS Transform custom (Java); AWS Transform full-stack Windows modernisation (.NET) | AWS DevOps blog |
| Price of Pro (current) | $19 per user per month | Q Developer pricing page |
| Critical fixes | Critical bug fixes continue during the transition window | AWS DevOps blog |
Plans and pricing
As of 15 November 2026, the Amazon Q Developer pricing page still lists two tiers, and existing customers stay on them until the end-of-support date. The announcement adds that code transformation through the IDE plugins requires a paid Q Developer subscription until 30 April 2027.
| Item | Free | Pro |
|---|---|---|
| Price | $0, perpetual tier with monthly limits | $19 per user per month, prorated in the first month |
| Billing trigger | Not applicable | A subscription-activating action such as agentic coding, transformation or code completions; signing in alone does not start the fee |
| Agentic requests (IDE and CLI chat) | 50 per month | Higher limit (number not stated by AWS) |
| Java transformation | 1,000 lines of code per user per month | 4,000 lines of code per user per month, pooled at payer-account level; $0.003 per line beyond that |
| Data collection | Opt-out available | Automatically opted out |
| Admin dashboard, IP indemnity | Not listed | Listed |
| New sign-ups | Closed from 15 May 2026 | New subscriptions closed from 15 May 2026; existing subscriptions can add seats |
The destination products price differently. Kiro uses credits: as of 15 November 2026 its pricing page lists Free ($0, 50 credits), Pro ($20, 1,000 credits), Pro+ ($40, 2,000), Pro Max ($100, 5,000) and Power ($200, 10,000) per user per month, Teams at $20 per seat per month with 500 credits per seat, and add-on credits at $0.04 each. The Kiro CLI upgrade guide states that Q Developer Pro subscriptions work with Kiro CLI. AWS Transform charges the custom transformation agent at $0.035 per agent minute, billed in one-minute increments for active agent work; the AWS-managed .NET transformation is $0.00 within a quota of up to 50,000 agent minutes per month (as of the pricing page updated 12 November 2026). For tool-by-tool pricing across the market, see the AI Coding Tools Pricing Tracker.
Models available
Model access is the first place where the transition is already visible. The announcement states that "starting May 29, 2026, Opus 4.6 will no longer be available on Q Developer Pro", that Opus 4.5 and other existing models stay on Q Developer Pro, and that the latest coding models, including Opus 4.7, are available only on Kiro. AWS's user guide notes that Q Developer is built on Amazon Bedrock with automated abuse detection implemented in Bedrock.
Kiro's pricing page lists open-weight models and Claude Sonnet 4.5 (with limits) on its Free plan and premium models on paid plans. A team that compares output quality during a pilot should record which model each tool used, because a like-for-like comparison is not possible once the two products offer different model sets.
Features and modes
The Q Developer IDE documentation lists the features below by IDE. The Kiro migration guide maps the same jobs to Kiro and lists capabilities that Kiro adds.
| Capability | Q Developer IDE plugins | Kiro IDE | Kiro CLI |
|---|---|---|---|
| Chat and agentic coding | VS Code, JetBrains, Eclipse, Visual Studio | Yes | Yes |
| Inline suggestions | All four IDEs | Yes (per AWS: inline suggestions, chat and code generation are available in Kiro) | Terminal agent |
| Inline chat | VS Code, JetBrains, Eclipse | Yes | Terminal agent |
| MCP servers | All four IDEs | Yes | Yes |
| Transformations | VS Code, JetBrains, Visual Studio | Moves to AWS Transform | Moves to AWS Transform |
| Terminal command allow and deny lists | Kiro addition | Yes | Yes |
| Steering files, hooks, custom subagents and agent skills, Powers | Kiro additions | Yes | Yes |
| Spec-driven development | Kiro addition | Yes | Kiro IDE feature |
AWS's end-of-support page says that "everything you rely on today (inline suggestions, chat, and code generation) is available in Kiro". The announcement describes Kiro as an agentic development environment built for spec-driven development, with Specs, Hooks, Steering files, Custom subagents and Powers.
Supported IDEs and platforms
Migration effort depends mostly on which editor a developer uses today. The Kiro migration guide gives a different route for each.
| Current Q Developer surface | Route named by Kiro's migration guide | What carries over |
|---|---|---|
| VS Code and VS Code-based IDEs | Install Kiro IDE, accept the prompt to import the VS Code profile, sign in | Extensions, themes, keybindings and settings through profile import |
| JetBrains IDEs (IntelliJ IDEA, PyCharm, WebStorm and others) | Install Kiro CLI, sign in, add Kiro as a custom agent in JetBrains AI Assistant through ACP | Editor stays the same; agent runs through Kiro CLI |
| Visual Studio and Eclipse | Kiro IDE as a standalone editor, or Kiro CLI in a terminal alongside the existing editor | Editor stays the same if the CLI route is chosen |
| Q Developer CLI | Already replaced by Kiro CLI (auto-update scheduled 24 November 2025; manual update with the Q app's update option) | Prompts, agents, MCP servers and rules copied to ~/.kiro on install |
| Console, mobile app, Slack and Teams | No migration required; outside the end-of-support scope | Not applicable |
The Kiro CLI upgrade guide (last updated 15 October 2026) documents the configuration mapping: user MCP servers move from ~/.aws/amazonq/mcp.json to ~/.kiro/settings/mcp.json (conflicting servers are skipped), rules from ~/.aws/amazonq/rules to ~/.kiro/steering, custom agents from ~/.aws/amazonq/cli-agents to ~/.kiro/agents, and workspace files from .amazonq/ to .kiro/. Kiro CLI leaves existing .amazonq folders untouched, keeps reading them for projects that still use them, and loads .kiro with a warning when both are present. The entry point is kiro-cli; q and q chat still work, and older tool names (for example use_aws, now aws) remain accepted.
Enterprise and admin controls
Most of the administrative work in the migration is subscription and identity housekeeping.
- Find every Pro subscription: with organisation-wide visibility enabled from the AWS Organizations management account (Amazon Q console, Subscriptions, Subscription view settings, On), management account administrators see Pro subscriptions from the management and member accounts in one list. The prerequisite is an organisation instance of IAM Identity Center connected to Q Developer. Member account administrators see only their own accounts.
- Plan the Kiro side: Kiro's enterprise documentation states that enterprise users sign in through IAM Identity Center, Okta or Microsoft Entra ID, that administrators manage access in the Kiro console in the AWS console, and that subscribing a group subscribes each member individually. Admin settings are enforced through a Kiro profile, one per AWS account per Region.
- Mind two Regions: the IAM Identity Center Region stores identities and subscriptions, and the Kiro profile Region is where data is stored. Decide the profile Region before the first user signs in.
- Control new sign-in routes: Kiro CLI accepts GitHub, Google (Gmail), Builder ID and IAM Identity Center, where Q CLI accepted Builder ID and IAM Identity Center only. Decide which personal sign-in routes are acceptable on corporate devices and say so in policy.
- Set usage limits: Kiro usage limits cap how many credits a user, group or profile can draw from a shared pool, and Kiro Enterprise lists alerts at 80% and 100% utilisation.
Data handling and privacy
The Q Developer pricing page lists data collection as "Opt-out available" on Free and "Automatically opted out" on Pro. During the transition, a developer who loses a Pro seat and signs in with a personal Builder ID moves to the Free tier's data-collection default, so remove Pro seats only after the replacement is live. On the Kiro side, the enterprise documentation places stored data in the Kiro profile Region, separate from the IAM Identity Center Region. Kiro's pricing page notes that the Free tier is not offered for Enterprise or AWS GovCloud (US). Review each destination's data terms with the same care given to Q Developer at adoption; the Amazon Q Developer and Kiro Security Guide covers the controls in detail.
Release history
Dated events relevant to the end of support, as stated on AWS and Kiro pages.
| Date | Event | Source |
|---|---|---|
| 17 November 2025 | Kiro CLI available as the next version of Q Developer CLI | Kiro docs: Upgrading from Q CLI |
| 24 November 2025 | Scheduled auto-update of Q Developer CLI to Kiro CLI for users with auto-update on | Kiro docs: Upgrading from Q CLI |
| 30 April 2026 | AWS publishes the Amazon Q Developer end-of-support announcement | AWS DevOps blog |
| 15 May 2026 | New sign-ups and new subscriptions closed | AWS DevOps blog |
| 29 May 2026 | Opus 4.6 removed from Q Developer Pro | AWS DevOps blog |
| 10 June 2026 | Announcement last modified; .NET Windows modernisation stated as no charge as of that date | AWS DevOps blog |
| 15 October 2026 | Kiro CLI upgrade guide last updated | Kiro docs |
| 30 April 2027 | End of support for IDE plugins and paid subscriptions; plugin transformations no longer accessible | AWS DevOps blog; Q Developer user guide |
Limits and known constraints
What AWS has not yet stated
As of 15 November 2026 the end-of-support page and announcement do not say whether installed plugins stop working on 30 April 2027 or keep running without support, and they give no refund or proration rules for subscriptions that run past that date. Treat 30 April 2027 as the last day you can depend on the plugins and plan to be off them earlier. For questions the pages do not answer, the announcement directs customers to their AWS account team.
Choosing a migration path
| Current use | Named path | Decision points |
|---|---|---|
| Chat, inline suggestions and agentic coding in VS Code | Kiro IDE with profile import | Editor change for developers; extension compatibility; Kiro plan and credit pool size |
| Same, in JetBrains | Kiro CLI as an ACP agent in JetBrains AI Assistant | JetBrains AI Assistant availability in your licence; CLI sign-in route |
| Same, in Visual Studio or Eclipse | Kiro IDE standalone or Kiro CLI alongside the editor | Whether developers accept a second tool window or editor |
| Java version upgrades, AWS SDK migrations, framework transitions | AWS Transform custom | Agent-minute cost ($0.035 per minute as of 12 November 2026); AWS Budgets to cap minutes; credits through the account team |
| .NET Framework to cross-platform .NET | AWS Transform full-stack Windows modernisation (from Visual Studio or a web console) | Quota of 50,000 agent minutes per month within which the managed .NET transformation is $0.00 |
| Console, mobile, Slack and Teams chat | No change | Note the AWS assistant rename in internal documentation |
Phased approach
- Inventory (now): enable organisation-wide subscription visibility and export the Pro subscriber list; ask developer platform teams which IDEs are in use; search repositories for
.amazonq/folders, which hold workspace MCP servers, rules and agents. - Finish transformations: AWS recommends completing in-progress Java and .NET transformations in Q Developer before 30 April 2027, or moving them to AWS Transform.
- Pilot: move one team per IDE family to its Kiro route, with a Kiro profile in the chosen Region and a usage limit set. Compare task completion on the same repositories and record the model used.
- Migrate configuration: confirm the copied MCP servers, steering files and agents in
~/.kiroand.kiro/, review any servers that were skipped as conflicts, and decide when to retire.amazonq/folders. - Roll out in rings: expand by team, then remove Pro seats only for users confirmed on the replacement.
- Rollback: the Kiro CLI guide documents reverting with
kiro-cli uninstalland reinstalling Q Developer CLI v1.19.7; prompts, agents and steering created in Kiro CLI are not available in Q CLI. IDE plugins remain usable for existing subscribers until 30 April 2027, which is the effective rollback window for the IDE route.
Measuring progress
- Pro subscriptions remaining, by account, against a target date before 30 April 2027.
- Developers active on the replacement tool as a share of former Q Developer users.
- Repositories still carrying only
.amazonq/configuration. - Open Java and .NET transformations not yet completed or moved to AWS Transform.
- Kiro credit consumption against pool size and usage limits.
Security guidance
- Review migrated MCP servers: the automatic copy from
~/.aws/amazonq/mcp.jsonbrings every configured server across. Re-approve each one against your allow-list rather than inheriting the old list. See Coding Agent Configuration File Attacks. - Use Kiro's command controls: terminal command allow and deny lists are available in Kiro IDE and Kiro CLI; set them before broad rollout.
- Scope AWS credentials: the agent runs with the developer's local access, so use short-lived IAM Identity Center sessions with least-privilege permission sets rather than long-lived access keys. See AI Coding Tools and Secrets Sprawl.
- Keep sign-in on corporate identity: restrict personal GitHub, Google and Builder ID sign-in on managed devices where policy requires enterprise identity.
- Apply updates: critical bug fixes continue for the plugins during the transition, so keep them updated until removal, and apply vendor security updates promptly to Kiro.
Broader controls for agentic coding tools are in the AI IDE and Coding Agent Security Guide.
Practitioner checklist
- Record 30 April 2027 as the end-of-support date in your software lifecycle register, with an internal cut-over date well before it.
- Enable organisation-wide Pro subscription visibility and export the subscriber list by account.
- Map each Q Developer user to an IDE route: Kiro IDE, Kiro CLI with JetBrains ACP, or Kiro CLI alongside Visual Studio or Eclipse.
- List every in-progress Java and .NET transformation and finish it or move it to AWS Transform, with AWS Budgets set for agent minutes.
- Choose the Kiro profile Region and IAM Identity Center configuration before the first enterprise sign-in.
- Re-approve migrated MCP servers, steering files and custom agents, and decide when to remove
.amazonq/folders. - Set Kiro command allow and deny lists and credit usage limits for pilot groups.
- Remove Pro seats only after each user is confirmed on the replacement, and recheck AWS's announcement page each quarter for changes.
Standards and references
- AWS: Amazon Q Developer end-of-support announcement
- AWS: Amazon Q Developer IDE plugins end of support
- AWS: What is Amazon Q Developer?
- AWS: Using Amazon Q Developer in the IDE
- AWS: Viewing aggregated Amazon Q Developer subscriptions
- AWS: Amazon Q Developer pricing
- AWS: AWS Transform pricing
- Kiro: Migrating from Amazon Q Developer
- Kiro: Upgrading from Amazon Q Developer CLI
- Kiro: Enterprise concepts
- Kiro: Pricing
Related NHI Mgmt Group resources: Amazon Q Developer and Kiro Security Guide · Kiro guide · AI Coding Tools Hub · AI IDE and Coding Agent Security Guide