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Amid the big news that Windsurf is being acquired by Cognition (after its founders went to Google), developers interested in AI-powered coding may be on the hunt for new alternatives.
In a bit of fortuitous timing, today also saw Amazon’s release of Kiro, a new agentic integrated development environment (IDE) built to help developers move from prototype to production using AI workflows grounded in structure, planning and engineering rigor.
Kiro uses Claude Sonnet 3.7 and 4.0 as the default model backends. Users can switch between them, and future support for other models may be added.
Now in public preview, Kiro runs on macOS (Intel and Apple Silicon), Windows and Linux for free to start (limited to 50 interactions per user per month), with additional pricing tiers starting at $19 for more features.
Why should developers check out Kiro?
Kiro aims to bridge the gap between “vibe coding” — allowing AI to generate full blocks of code or entire software processes and applications from plain text instructions, typically for rapid prototyping and iteration — and the more demanding process of delivering secure, maintainable and scalable applications in real-world environments.
The tool combines AI agents with project specifications, technical architecture and automated task management to support a complete software development lifecycle inside a single interface.
Kiro vs. Q Developer?
But didn’t Amazon already have its own AI-code completion tool, Q Developer? Yes, and that’s still available.
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