Two code & development tools, one decision. Here is the honest split.
| Amazon Q Developer | Cursor | |
|---|---|---|
| Pricing | Free plan | Free trial |
| Best at | Teams building on AWS who want service-aware code help and infrastructure answers. | Multi-file changes, refactors, and "build me this feature" prompts that touch many files. |
| In short | AWS's coding assistant in the IDE and CLI - completions, chat, and deep knowledge of AWS services. | An AI-first code editor that can edit across your whole codebase, not just autocomplete a line. |
| On Atlas | 3 starter prompts | 3 starter prompts |
Pick Amazon Q Developer when the job is Teams building on AWS who want service-aware code help and infrastructure answers.. Pick Cursor when the job is Multi-file changes, refactors, and "build me this feature" prompts that touch many files.. Still torn? Run one real task through both free tiers. An hour of testing beats a week of reviews.
Here is my code: [paste code]. Find the three most likely bugs or edge cases, explain each in one sentence, then show the fixed code with tests.