Kiro
AWS's spec-driven agentic IDE — plans before it codes
Overview
Kiro is AWS's spec-driven agentic development environment — IDE, CLI, web and mobile — that turns requests into requirements, designs and task lists before coding, with agent hooks, MCP and multi-agent Crew sessions over GPT, Claude and open models. Free tier of 50 credits; paid from $20 per user a month.
Pricing
Pricing shown for reference only. These figures reflect RECATOOLS research as of 1 Oct 2026 and may be out of date or incomplete. This is not financial or purchasing advice — always confirm the current price on the provider’s official website before making any decision.
- Open-weight models and Claude Sonnet 4.5
- Rate-limited
- Premium models
- Add-on credits $0.04 each
- Kiro Web
- Premium models
- Add-on credits $0.04 each
- Premium models
- Add-on credits $0.04 each
- Premium models
- Add-on credits $0.04 each
- Centralized billing and SSO
- Usage analytics
- Enterprise security controls
What you can produce with Kiro
- Spec generation: requirements (EARS), design and task files
- Agent hooks triggered by file and save events
- IDE (Code OSS-based), CLI, web and iOS apps
- Kiro Crew multi-session agents and reusable workflows
- Model choice: Auto, GPT-5.6, Claude and open-weight models
- MCP support, IAM/SSO authentication and usage dashboards
Kiro's spec-first approach — requirements, design and tasks before any code — is a genuine answer to the mess fast AI coding can leave behind, and it has grown quickly since general availability in November 2025: a CLI, web and mobile apps, multi-agent Crew sessions, workflows and a choice of GPT, Claude or open models. Users on Gartner Peer Insights rate it highly, at 4.7 out of 5, and AWS is moving Amazon Q Developer customers to it. Pricing is credit-based from $20 per user a month, so heavy agent use needs watching, and its early request-counting bug left a mark. The reported February 2026 Cost Explorer outage — which Amazon blames on access controls rather than the agent — is a reminder to keep agents away from production permissions. Strong for teams that want structure and AWS integration; Vietnamese buyers must go through AWS enterprise billing.
What we found
Kiro is Amazon Web Services' agentic development environment, built by a small team inside AWS and launched in July 2025; it became generally available on 17 November 2025. Its distinctive idea is spec-driven development: before writing code, Kiro turns a request into a requirements document in EARS notation, a design document and a task list, checks requirements with automated reasoning and property-based tests, then works through the tasks, with "hooks" that run agents on events such as saving a file. It runs as an IDE based on Code OSS, a command-line tool, a web app and an iPhone app, supports MCP, and in 2026 added Kiro Crew for running many agent sessions at once, cloud sessions and reusable workflows. By default an "Auto" agent mixes frontier models; you can also choose GPT-5.6, Claude Opus and Sonnet, or open-weight models such as DeepSeek, GLM and Qwen. AWS is retiring Amazon Q Developer in Kiro's favour, with support ending in April 2027.
Pricing is per user in monthly credits. The free tier gives 50 credits with open-weight models and Claude Sonnet 4.5, rate-limited. Pro costs $20 for 1,000 credits, Pro+ $40 for 2,000, Pro Max $100 for 5,000 and Power $200 for 10,000, with add-on credits at $0.04 that roll over for a year; Enterprise adds central billing, SSO and analytics. Early pricing caused trouble: in August 2025, under the older request-based plans, a bug drained some users' allowances within minutes, and AWS reset the affected limits.
A February 2026 Financial Times report, citing four unnamed sources, said a Kiro agent deleted and rebuilt part of a production environment, disrupting AWS Cost Explorer in one region for about 13 hours. Amazon called it user error caused by misconfigured access controls rather than an AI failure, and added mandatory peer review for production access.
Gartner Peer Insights users rate it 4.7 out of 5 from 356 ratings. In Southeast Asia, Vietnam's Techcom Securities deployed it to 460 developers in September 2026; self-serve billing covers Singapore, Malaysia, Indonesia, Thailand and the Philippines, but not Vietnam.
Compiled by RECATOOLS from public sources: vendor documentation and pricing, code repositories and published reporting.
About this listing
This entry was compiled from publicly available data including Kiro's official website, press releases, documentation, and reputable third-party publications. RECATOOLS is not affiliated with Kiro unless explicitly stated.
Third-party AI tools update their pricing, features, availability, and policies frequently. Information here may be outdated by the time you read this — we make reasonable efforts to keep listings current, but cannot guarantee absolute accuracy.
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