# Cursor vs Kiro

Canonical: https://theagenticweekly.com/compare/cursor-vs-kiro · Last verified: 2026-11-03 · Published: 2026-10-25 · Author: Agentic Weekly (operated independently from Texas, US) · Evidence: Last verified Nov 3, 2026 (America/Chicago) on Cursor pricing, Kiro pricing, kiro.dev and the Kiro license. Evidence: Reported. We have not run Cursor or Kiro; everything here is from the vendors' own pages.

Where each price comes from:

- Cursor prices: [cursor.com/pricing](https://cursor.com/pricing) · Checked Nov 1, 2026
- Kiro prices: [kiro.dev/pricing](https://kiro.dev/pricing/) · Checked Nov 1, 2026

**Our pick:** Pick Cursor for teams that want cloud agents with shared, scriptable environments; pick Kiro for developers who want structured specs before code is written. No overall winner: we have not benchmarked them against each other. **Updated:** 2026-11-03 (America/Chicago).

> As of Nov 3, 2026 (CT), Cursor lists Free, Plus at $8 a month, Premium at $30, Super at $100 and Ultra at $200, with third-party models billed separately by usage. Kiro, from AWS, is credit-based: Free has 50 credits, Pro is $20 for 1,000 credits, and plans run up to Power at $200 for 10,000. Kiro's spec mode turns prompts into requirements, designs and tasks before writing code.

## Plans and prices side by side

Table: Cursor and Kiro plans (vendor pages read Nov 3, 2026, CT)

| Plan tier | Cursor price/month | Cursor usage | Kiro price/user/month | Kiro credits | Overage | Team plan | Models |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Free | $0 | Limited (limited agent and chat requests) | $0 | 50 | Kiro: no add-on credits listed for Free | n/a | Cursor: limited; Kiro: open-weight models and Claude Sonnet 4.5 |
| Entry | Plus $8 | Basic shared pool (Cursor and Grok) | Pro $20 | 1,000 | Cursor: top-offs; Kiro: add-on credits $0.04 | n/a | Cursor Plus: Grok models only; Kiro: premium models |
| Mid | Premium $30 | 4x Plus | Pro+ $40 | 2,000 | Cursor: top-offs; third-party models billed separately; Kiro: $0.04/credit | n/a | Cursor: latest Grok models + third-party at API list price |
| High | Super $100 | 15x Plus | Pro Max $100 | 5,000 | As above | n/a | As above, plus Cursor priority access at peak times |
| Top | Ultra $200 | 50x Plus | Power $200 | 10,000 | As above | n/a | As above |
| Teams | Teams $30+/user; Enterprise custom | Pooled | Enterprise via sales | Not published | n/a | Cursor Teams: SAML/OIDC SSO, usage analytics, centralized billing; Kiro Enterprise: SSO, centralized billing, usage analytics | n/a |

Our own pages on this were checked against the same Cursor page on Nov 3 and match: [Cursor pricing explained](https://theagenticweekly.com/what-is/cursor-pricing) and [Cursor](https://theagenticweekly.com/tools/cursor). Sources: [Cursor pricing](https://cursor.com/pricing), [Kiro pricing](https://kiro.dev/pricing/). More on Kiro: [Kiro pricing explained](https://theagenticweekly.com/what-is/kiro-pricing).

## How usage is billed

- **Cursor:** one pool of AI usage shared across Cursor and Grok; higher tiers have larger pools, usage costs vary by product, and "your allowance refreshes weekly". Past the pool you can buy top-offs or wait for the refresh. Third-party model usage in Cursor is not included in the monthly price and is billed separately at API list price (Premium and up).
- **Kiro:** "A credit is a unit of work in response to user prompts"; simple prompts can use less than 1 credit. Prompts go to Auto by default, a mix of frontier and specialised models. Add-on credits are $0.04 each on paid plans.
- **Our arithmetic:** at $0.04 an add-on credit, Kiro's 1,000 Pro credits would cost $40 bought separately, so the $20 plan is half the add-on rate. Cursor does not publish a per-unit price for its pool, so there is no like-for-like figure.

## Workflow

- **Kiro:** spec-driven development turns prompts into "requirements, architectural designs, and sequenced tasks", then implements them with parallel agents; property-based tests catch edge cases. There is a Kiro IDE and a Kiro CLI (curl -fsSL https://cli.kiro.dev/install | bash).
- **Cursor:** Cursor Agent on every plan; cloud agents and automations, code hosting via Origin and AI code reviews via Bugbot from Premium up.
- **Licence:** Kiro's IDE and CLI are licensed as "AWS Content" under the AWS Customer Agreement ([Kiro license](https://kiro.dev/license/)), so Kiro is proprietary.

## Kiro and Amazon Q Developer

AWS says it will discontinue support for the Amazon Q Developer IDE plugins on April 30, 2027 and points users to Kiro for similar capabilities ([AWS](https://aws.amazon.com/q/developer/), read Nov 3, 2026). If you are coming from Q Developer, see [Kiro vs Amazon Q Developer](https://theagenticweekly.com/compare/kiro-vs-amazon-q-developer).

## Other picks people compare

If you want an open-source agent inside VS Code, look at [Cline](https://theagenticweekly.com/tools/cline); for building apps from prompts without an editor, see [Base44 alternatives](https://theagenticweekly.com/alternatives/base44). For more editors, see [Cursor vs Windsurf](https://theagenticweekly.com/compare/cursor-vs-windsurf) and [Claude Code vs Cursor](https://theagenticweekly.com/compare/claude-code-vs-cursor).

## Which to pick when

- **Pick Cursor if** you want third-party models at API list price, cloud agents and a usage pool that refreshes weekly.
- **Pick Kiro if** you want specs and task lists before code, work on AWS, or are moving off the Amazon Q Developer IDE plugins.
- **On a budget:** Cursor Plus is $8 but Grok-only; Kiro Free has 50 credits a month.
- **More:** [Cursor alternatives](https://theagenticweekly.com/alternatives/cursor), [best AI coding agents](https://theagenticweekly.com/best/ai-coding-agents).

## FAQ

### Is Kiro cheaper than Cursor?

At entry level, Cursor Plus is $8 a month (Grok models only) and Kiro Pro is $20 per user a month for 1,000 credits. Both top out at $200 a month on self-serve plans (Cursor Ultra, Kiro Power).

### Is Kiro open source?

No. Kiro's license page says the Kiro IDE and Kiro CLI are licensed as AWS Content under the AWS Customer Agreement.

### Does Cursor include Claude or GPT models?

Cursor's pricing page says third-party models are available from Premium up and billed separately by usage at API list price; Plus is Grok-only.

### What is Kiro's spec mode?

Kiro's site calls it spec-driven development: it turns prompts into requirements, architectural designs and sequenced tasks, then implements them with parallel agents.

## Sources

- [Cursor pricing](https://cursor.com/pricing) (fetched 2026-11-03)
- [Kiro pricing](https://kiro.dev/pricing/) (fetched 2026-11-03)
- [kiro.dev](https://kiro.dev/) (fetched 2026-11-03)
- [Kiro license](https://kiro.dev/license/) (fetched 2026-11-03)
- [Amazon Q Developer (end of support notice)](https://aws.amazon.com/q/developer/) (fetched 2026-11-03)

## Related

- [Cursor: verdict](https://theagenticweekly.com/tools/cursor)
- [Kiro: verdict](https://theagenticweekly.com/tools/kiro)
- [Cursor pricing explained](https://theagenticweekly.com/what-is/cursor-pricing)
- [Kiro pricing explained](https://theagenticweekly.com/what-is/kiro-pricing)
- [Kiro vs Amazon Q Developer](https://theagenticweekly.com/compare/kiro-vs-amazon-q-developer)
- [Cursor alternatives](https://theagenticweekly.com/alternatives/cursor)

## Changelog

- 2026-10-25: First published. Facts read from vendor pages and the GitHub API on 2026-10-25.
- 2026-11-03: Rewritten in place: answer first, a dated comparison table and sources, with every price re-read on the vendor pages on Nov 3, 2026 (America/Chicago). The page was noindexed before this rewrite.

## How to cite

Agentic Weekly, "Cursor vs Kiro", last updated 2026-11-03, https://theagenticweekly.com/compare/cursor-vs-kiro