Kiro

Name: Kiro
Author: Amazon Web Services (AWS)

Amazon Web Services (AWS) · Coding agents

Kiro is an agentic development platform built and operated by AWS. Its main workflow is spec-driven: the agent writes requirements, a design and a sequenced task list before implementing. It ships as a VS Code-based IDE, a terminal CLI, a web interface that runs tasks in cloud sandboxes, a mobile app, and Kiro Crew, an open-source persistent agent workspace. Usage is billed in credits across several model tiers.

kiro.dev Source repository Docs Pricing Add to compare

What reviewers and users praise

Spec-first workflow produces reviewable requirements/design/task documents (Ricardo Gil; Axonbuild; Böckeler found Kiro's 3-file model easiest to understand)
Strong fit for AWS-centric work (HN user: 'it knows more about AWS than Amazon themselves')
Several users report credit plans as adequate or good value at moderate use (HN, June 2026 and May 2026)

What they criticise

Spec workflow is heavy for small tasks (Böckeler: 'sledgehammer to crack a nut'; bitdoze; Axonbuild)
Credit consumption and pricing changes are a recurring complaint (r/kiroIDE posts Sept 2026; HN)
Users report lagging availability of new models and missing features such as worktrees (r/kiroIDE)
Repeated prompt-injection / RCE vulnerabilities disclosed in 2025–2026 (CVE-2026-0830, CVE-2026-10591, Mindgard report)

Rating · evidence to 26 Sept 2026

Provisional
Trust B

Adoption—

Experts64

Crowd46

Experts vs the crowdcrowd cooler by 17

Experts64

Crowd46

Price	Free, paid from $20
Use it via	Desktop app, CLI, Web app, Mobile app
Runs on	macos, linux, windows, web
Licence	proprietary
Updated	Evidence collected 26 Sept 2026

How the rating was worked out

Weights for Coding agents: adoption 35%, experts 40%, crowd 25%. Pillars without enough evidence are left out and the others re-weighted. The method.

Adoption & momentumweight 35%	—	No public reach signal found
Expertsindependent reviews · weight 40%	64	8 independent reviews (3 positive · 5 mixed · 0 negative), averaged toward 50 for small samples.
Crowdcommunity sample · weight 25%	46	22 dated posts from reddit, hackernews, youtube: 7 positive · 6 mixed · 9 negative (positive + ½ mixed) ÷ n, averaged toward 50 for small samples
Rating	57	Provisional: low confidence (2 of 3 pillars, 22 community posts).

Evidence checks. 1 item removed: date does not match the source (1). How evidence is checked.

Editorial adjustment. The kirodotdev/Kiro repository is Kiro's public issue tracker, not its code; its stars do not measure use.

Trust & safety

Seven dimensions graded A–D from documented facts. Overall: B.

Permission model

IDE docs label Autopilot the default mode, in which Kiro 'works autonomously to complete tasks end-to-end'; Supervised mode (approval after each turn with file edits) is opt-in. Protected paths (.git/, .vscode/, mcp.json) and a trusted-commands list require approval in both modes. Kiro's security page states Supervised mode 'does not function as a sandbox'. Cloud sandboxes exist only for the Web surface. source

Data access scope

Agent works on the open workspace with broad file and shell access; protected paths and trusted-command allowlist are documented, but no documented per-folder read scoping. source

Data storage

Cloud service. Free and individual subscribers' content stored in AWS US East (N. Virginia); enterprise data may be stored in the configured region and customer S3 buckets; AWS KMS encryption at rest with customer-managed key option. source

Data retention & training

For Free Tier and individual subscribers, content 'may be used for service improvement' by default and inputs may be stored up to 60 days for abuse detection; opt-out via Settings > Telemetry and Content. Enterprise content is not used for service improvement. source

Incident history (24 months)

Serious vulnerabilities within 24 months: CVE-2026-0830 (command injection via crafted workspace path, fixed in 0.6.18), CVE-2026-10591 (CVSS 8.8, prompt injection rewriting MCP config / .vscode files leading to RCE, fixed 0.11.x), and a Mindgard-reported data-exfiltration prompt injection (no CVE, fixed in 0.8.140), plus an earlier July 2025 report by Johann Rehberger. All reported as fixed. Regraded from D: Revision 2: serious issues that were each fixed and publicly disclosed grade C; D is kept for unresolved issues or slow or undisclosed fixes. source

Compliance

Kiro docs state Kiro is included in the scope of AWS's ISO/IEC 27001:2022 certification (verified by EY CertifyPoint) and that Kiro IDE and CLI are HIPAA eligible. SOC 2 not specifically mentioned on the page. source

Transparency

IDE, CLI and Web are closed source (the kirodotdev/Kiro GitHub repo has no licence and serves as issue tracker); detailed dated public changelog per surface and extensive docs. Kiro Crew is Apache-2.0 open source. source

The experts

8 named independent reviews found; dated reviews from the last 12 months are scored.

mixed
most architecturally interesting AI IDE that's shipped in 2026. The spec-driven workflow isn't a gimmick — it solves a real problem that every other tool in the space ignores.Ricardo Gil (independent consultant) · 5 Aug 2026 · ricardogil.com
mixed
Kiro is good at the planning and review side of coding and unproven on speed.Muhammad Bilal Shahid (Axonbuild) · 7 Aug 2026 · axonbuild.com
mixed
not a Cursor killer. It’s a different tool for a different workflow.Dragos (Bitdoze) · 25 Aug 2026 · bitdoze.com
mixed
it quickly became clear that the workflow was like using a sledgehammer to crack a nut.Birgitta Böckeler (Thoughtworks), martinfowler.com · 15 Oct 2025 · martinfowler.com
positive
AWS Kiro represents a shift in how we think about AI-assisted development.Peter McAree (PeteScript) · 18 Dec 2025 · petermcaree.com
positive
we take look at Kiro and its spec-driven development workflow: a complete game-changer for agentic AI assisted development that puts intent and correctness before code.Cloudmancer (YouTube) · 29 Dec 2025 · youtube.com
mixed
For rapid prototyping and "let me see what happens" sessions, Bolt, Lovable, or Cursor will serve you better.Pranay Joshi (Vibe Coder blog) · 4 Apr 2026 · blog.vibecoder.me
positive
Recently I used Kiro for Agentic Development and felt at home. This should be the tool for Software Development by Developers.keepCoding (YouTube) · 16 Jun 2026 · youtube.com

The crowd

22 coded posts from reddit, hackernews, youtube.

7 positive6 mixed9 negative

negative
BUGGY APP FILLED WITH ERRORS, NO FABLE, ASTRA OR UPDATED CHINESE MODELS, FILLED WITH USERS ACCOUNT CREATION ERRORS AND NON RESPONSIVE SUPPORTr/kiroIDE · 15 Sept 2026 · reddit.com
negative
In the last few hours, the price of GPT-5.6 on Kiro has surged significantly. For Luna, the price jumped 11 times—from 0.1x to 1.1x.r/kiroIDE · 15 Sept 2026 · reddit.com
negative
In less than 30 secs kiro uses almost 100 credits. wow. 5 mins your pro subscription is gone!r/kiroIDE · 16 Sept 2026 · reddit.com
negative
MCP keeps failing on long running tasks and sometimes it is unable to write skill files even when full permissions are given to it.r/kiroIDE · 26 Apr 2026 · reddit.com
negative
They took a page from AWS on whatever the hell a Kiro token is supposed to represent.news.ycombinator.com · 4 Sept 2026 · news.ycombinator.com
negative
I did try Kiro which seems to have the same philosophy but it's just not there. Most of the features I like in Cursor are missing.news.ycombinator.com · 31 Aug 2026 · news.ycombinator.com
negative
I spent an hour on Friday restraining myself from swearing at Kiro, which was loudly and sarcastically convinced that the "network" issues it was havingnews.ycombinator.com · 31 Aug 2026 · news.ycombinator.com
positive
I switched to Kiro and it's essentially identical.. well a bit better because you get a better idea of what the harness is doingnews.ycombinator.com · 7 Jul 2026 · news.ycombinator.com

Pricing

As published, checked 26 Sept 2026.

Plan	Price	Notes
Free	Free	50 credits
Pro	$20 / monthly	Per user; 1,000 credits; overage $0.04/credit
Pro+	$40 / monthly	Per user; 2,000 credits; overage $0.04/credit
Pro Max	$100 / monthly	Per user; 5,000 credits; overage $0.04/credit
Power	$200 / monthly	Per user; 10,000 credits; overage $0.04/credit
Enterprise	Custom	Custom; centralized billing, SSO, usage analytics, enterprise security controls

Recent changes

23 Sept 2026
CLI 2.24.0: session-wide tool approval, session dashboard controls, environment isolation source
21 Sept 2026
CLI 2.23.0: reasoning controls and cloud sessions source
16 Sept 2026
Claude Fable 5.1 preview begins rolling out to Kiro Enterprise source
14 Sept 2026
IDE 1.1: agent artifacts and native ARM64 builds; GPT-5.6 models moved to 1M context (with a price-multiplier increase reported by users) source
24 Sept 2026
Kiro Crew 0.7.0 (open-source persistent workspace): live settings, durable work, broader pull-request watches source

Ranked alongside

Other ranked entries in Coding agents.

Compare with the top two

OpenCodeAnomaly75

Claude CodeAnthropic73

Zed (Agent Panel)Zed Industries73

GitHub CopilotGitHub (Microsoft)72

Codex (CLI and app)OpenAI71

Sources

Every figure above traces to one of these, observed up to 26 Sept 2026.