Amazon Web Services (AWS) is introducing usage restrictions for Kiro, the AI editor currently available in preview. The measure was taken after demand for the service proved significantly higher than expected.
According to The Register, AWS is working on scaling up its infrastructure. The team has set temporary limits on daily usage and activated a waiting list for new users.
Jay Raval, an engineer for developer experiences at Kiro, announced via the official Discord channel that the limits are necessary to ensure performance. He indicated that the exact usage limits have not been disclosed and emphasized that the restrictions are temporary.
The change follows increasing complaints from users about slow performance, suggesting that Kiro’s backend is struggling with the current load. An update was recently rolled out that introduced improved prompt caching and clearer error messages when daily limits are exceeded. These error messages appear to have elicited mixed reactions from users.
New pricing details
An earlier inspection of Kiro’s official website by The Register listed several subscription options, including free, Pro, and Pro+ levels. That information has since been removed. The site now states that new pricing details for different usage levels will be announced soon.
AWS presented Kiro last week. It supports developers from idea to production system. While many developers are now familiar with the fast, creative process of vibe coding via generative AI, Kiro focuses on the next step: the structured and reliable translation of prototypes into fully-fledged software.
Research shows that developers overestimate the power of AI. In fact, AI seems to slow down development tasks. Vibe coding, the iterative generation of code via prompts, can quickly produce a functioning prototype, but in practice this is rarely suitable for production. According to AWS, these experimental workflows fall short in terms of specification management, documentation, and code quality. With Kiro, AWS aims to bridge this gap.
Kiro is separate from the AWS core platform
Kiro is based on a fork of Code OSS, the open-source basis of Visual Studio Code. The editor currently works with language models from Anthropic, namely Claude Sonnet 3.7 and 4.0. Although the project falls under AWS, the company states that Kiro is separate from the AWS core platform. No AWS account is required for use, and in its current form, there is no direct link to other AWS services.
A distinctive feature of Kiro is its so-called spec mode. In this mode, the editor does not generate code based on a prompt, but rather a set of markdown files with specifications, a proposal for technologies, and a step-by-step plan for implementation.
According to The Register, a brief test with Kiro yielded realistic results that were suitable as a project proposal. By comparison, Google’s Firebase Studio offered a working prototype based on the same prompt, but with less depth and more platform dependency.