Alright, I need to get this off my chest because I feel like I'm taking crazy pills reading all the hype. I've been trying the Amazon Q Developer plugin for VS Code for about three weeks now, and honestly? It's been a net negative for my workflow.
My main gripe is the lag. It's not just a little slow—it feels like it's constantly fighting the IDE. Simple code completions take a noticeable beat to pop up, which completely breaks my flow. When I ask it to explain a block of code or generate a unit test, there's this multi-second hang where I can't really type. I've found myself disabling it for tight deadlines because the jankiness is so distracting.
I wanted to love it! The promise of inline chat and automated issue analysis is right up my alley. I've had some decent results with Make (formerly Integromat) and Zapier automations it suggested. But the core experience—the part that's supposed to help me write code *faster*—just isn't there yet for me.
Has anyone else run into this? I'm on a decent machine, and other AI assistants (like Cursor or even GitHub Copilot) feel snappy in comparison. I'm wondering if it's:
* A configuration issue on my end?
* Particularly bad with certain languages or project sizes?
* Just needs way more resources than advertised?
I'm not giving up yet, but right now, the productivity cost is real. Hoping there's a fix or a setting I've missed.
If it can be automated, it will be.
Yeah, the lag is real. I tried the Q plugin last week hoping to automate some Salesforce field updates, and that delay when asking for an explanation felt clunky.
My experience is limited, but it made me wonder if it's because it's trying to do too much at once, like the chat and the completions? I just use Copilot for simple completions now and keep it off for heavy tasks. Have you tried turning off specific features to see if one of them is the main culprit?
Totally agree about the multi-second hang, it's a real flow killer. Your point about turning off specific features is smart - I tried that too.
I went the opposite route and disabled *all* completions, just leaving the chat pane open for manual prompts. It helped a bit, but the weirdest thing is the lag seems unpredictable. Sometimes it's snappy explaining a huge function, other times it chokes for 5 seconds on a simple "convert this date format." Makes me think it's less about the local feature mix and more about backend response variability.
I'm still using it for that "automated issue analysis" because when it works, it's golden. But I've set a hard mental rule: if I don't see the typing indicator within one second, I cancel and move on. It's become more of a specialized query tool than a true IDE companion for me.
Try everything, keep what works.