Terraform vs CloudFormation
Last updated
Last updated
Vendor Lock-In: AWS CloudFormation is tightly integrated with AWS services, making it the natural choice for AWS-centric environments.
Native Integration: Seamlessly integrates with other AWS services, providing direct resource references and a unified management experience.
Service Coverage: Provides comprehensive coverage of AWS services, often including support for new services shortly after release.
Learning Curve: Learning CloudFormation may be easier for those familiar with AWS services.
Cloud-Agnostic: Terraform is cloud-agnostic, supporting multiple cloud providers, including AWS, Azure, Google Cloud, and more. This makes it a versatile choice for hybrid or multi-cloud deployments.
Community and Modules: This has a large and active community, and using modules allows for reusable and shareable code.
State Management: Terraform uses a state file to track the current state of infrastructure, providing a clear view of the deployed resources.
Language Flexibility: The HashiCorp Configuration Language (HCL) used by Terraform is designed for readability and is more flexible than JSON or YAML.
Scenario: A company utilises its infrastructure with multiple cloud providers such as AWS, Azure, and GCP.
Reason for Terraform:
Terraform has providers for various cloud platforms, making it easier to manage multi-cloud environments.
A single Terraform configuration can span different cloud providers, allowing consistent infrastructure as code (IaC) across the entire infrastructure landscape.
Scenario: An organisation heavily relies on community-contributed modules and providers to enhance infrastructure provisioning.
Reason for Terraform:
Terraform has a vibrant community that contributes reusable modules and providers for a wide range of services and platforms.
Leveraging community-driven content can significantly speed up the development process and provide best practices adopted by a broader audience.
Scenario: An enterprise's infrastructure is predominantly AWS-centric, and the team is deeply invested in AWS-specific services and features.
Reason for CloudFormation:
AWS CloudFormation provides native integration with AWS services, making it well-suited for managing AWS-specific resources.
Features like CloudFormation StackSets and Change Sets enhance the management of AWS-specific resources and deployments.
Scenario: An organisation heavily utilises AWS-managed services, such as AWS Elastic Beanstalk or AWS OpsWorks.
Reason for CloudFormation:
AWS CloudFormation integrates seamlessly with AWS-managed services, offering simplified provisioning and management of these services.
CloudFormation provides specific resource types for many AWS-managed services, allowing for a higher level of abstraction in the templates.
