Amazon CodeWhisperer

Amazon Q Developer is a generative AI–powered assistant for software development, available as plugins for popular IDEs, a command-line interface, and an assistant embedded in the AWS Management Console. It is aimed at professional developers and engineering teams, especially those building and operating applications on AWS.

According to AWS, the tool’s agentic capabilities can autonomously handle a wide range of tasks across the software development lifecycle. That includes implementing features, documenting, testing, reviewing, and refactoring code, as well as performing software upgrades and application modernization tasks like .NET porting and Java version upgrades. You get started by installing an extension for JetBrains IDEs, VS Code, Visual Studio, or Eclipse, or by setting up the command-line tool, and you can also access it through Microsoft Teams and Slack.

Beyond coding, Amazon Q Developer is integrated into the AWS Management Console to help you operate cloud workloads. It’s positioned as an expert on AWS services, able to help optimize costs and resources, provide architectural guidance, investigate operational incidents, and diagnose networking issues. It also extends into data and AI work, helping you write queries in natural language, generate code for data pipelines and ML models, and collaborate on AI projects with attention to data governance.

The standout aspect of Amazon Q Developer is that it’s explicitly described as agentic: it doesn’t just suggest snippets, but can autonomously carry out multi-step tasks like implementing features, refactoring codebases, upgrading Java versions, and assisting with .NET migrations. For teams heavily invested in AWS, the deep console integration and support for cloud operations, cost optimization, and incident investigation are likely its strongest advantages.

However, the available content doesn’t specify what underlying AI models it uses, nor does it detail how code, queries, or operational data are processed or stored. Privacy and data-handling specifics for the assistant itself aren’t described here, beyond generic AWS cookie and privacy notices. Exact performance numbers and productivity gains are referenced but not fully visible in this snippet, and there’s no information on language coverage, framework support breadth, or how customizable the agents are.

If you don’t work with AWS, or you’re looking for a lightweight, editor-only code completion tool without broader cloud and data integrations, this may be more complex than you need. Pricing details beyond mention of a Free Tier weren’t provided in the content, so you’ll likely need to check AWS’s pricing page for up-to-date information on usage limits and any paid options.