Infrastructure as Code (IaC) Tools

AWS CloudFormation vs Terraform

Compare AWS CloudFormation and Terraform side-by-side. See feature differences and pricing in the Infrastructure as Code (IaC) Tools category.

AWS CloudFormation

by Amazon

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Pricing: No CloudFormation charge for AWS and Alexa resource providers; third-party extensions and custom Hooks cost $0.0009 per handler operation after 1,000 free a month.

AWS CloudFormation is Amazon Web Services' infrastructure as code service, provisioning AWS and third-party resources from templates for teams on AWS.

10 /17 features Full profile

Terraform

by IBM

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Pricing: Community Edition CLI free. HCP Terraform per managed resource a month: Essentials from $0.10, Standard from $0.47, Premium from $0.99. Enterprise and Europe by quote.

Terraform is HashiCorp's infrastructure as code tool, owned by IBM, that provisions AWS, Azure and Google Cloud resources from HCL files for platform teams.

14 /17 features Full profile

Feature Comparison

Infrastructure as Code (IaC) Tools features side-by-side

Feature	AWS CloudFormation 10/17 features	Terraform 14/17 features
Providers for AWS, Azure and Google Cloud Official providers cover the three major clouds, with more for SaaS and on-premise APIs.	No	Yes
Execution plan preview before apply Every create, update and destroy is listed for review before any change is made.	Yes	Yes
Remote state with locking State is stored centrally and locked during runs so two applies cannot collide.	No	Yes
Drift detection against deployed cloud state Scheduled checks compare live resources with the declared configuration and flag differences.	Yes	Yes
Private module registry Versioned modules are published to an organisation-private registry for reuse across teams.	Yes	Yes
Infrastructure in general-purpose languages Infrastructure can be written in TypeScript, Python, Go or similar instead of a dedicated DSL.	Yes	No
Policy-as-code checks at plan time Rules evaluated against the plan block non-compliant changes before they are applied.	Yes	Yes
Pull-request plans from version control Speculative plans are posted to pull requests and applies run when the change is merged.	Yes	Yes
Cost estimate on each plan The plan shows the estimated monthly cost change of the proposed resources.	No	Yes
Import of existing cloud resources Resources created outside the tool can be brought under management without recreation.	Yes	Yes
Encrypted workspace variables Sensitive variables are stored encrypted per workspace and never echoed in run logs.	No	No
Per-workspace access control Teams are granted read, plan or apply rights on individual workspaces or stacks.	Yes	Yes
Approval required before apply A run can be configured to wait for a reviewer's confirmation between plan and apply.	Yes	Yes
Auto-destroy of temporary environments Stacks can carry a time-to-live after which their resources are torn down automatically.	No	Yes
Cross-stack output references One stack can read the outputs of another to wire dependent infrastructure together.	Yes	Yes
Self-hosted agents for private networks Runs can execute on agents inside a private network that the hosted service cannot reach.	No	Yes
Open source IaC engine The core CLI and language are open source; the hosted platform adds collaboration features.	No	No
Overall Rating	No reviews yet	No reviews yet

AWS CloudFormation 10/17 features

Providers for AWS, Azure and Google Cloud: No
Execution plan preview before apply: Yes
Remote state with locking: No
Drift detection against deployed cloud state: Yes
Private module registry: Yes
Infrastructure in general-purpose languages: Yes
Policy-as-code checks at plan time: Yes
Pull-request plans from version control: Yes
Cost estimate on each plan: No
Import of existing cloud resources: Yes
Encrypted workspace variables: No
Per-workspace access control: Yes
Approval required before apply: Yes
Auto-destroy of temporary environments: No
Cross-stack output references: Yes
Self-hosted agents for private networks: No
Open source IaC engine: No

No reviews yet

Terraform 14/17 features

Providers for AWS, Azure and Google Cloud: Yes
Execution plan preview before apply: Yes
Remote state with locking: Yes
Drift detection against deployed cloud state: Yes
Private module registry: Yes
Infrastructure in general-purpose languages: No
Policy-as-code checks at plan time: Yes
Pull-request plans from version control: Yes
Cost estimate on each plan: Yes
Import of existing cloud resources: Yes
Encrypted workspace variables: No
Per-workspace access control: Yes
Approval required before apply: Yes
Auto-destroy of temporary environments: Yes
Cross-stack output references: Yes
Self-hosted agents for private networks: Yes
Open source IaC engine: No

No reviews yet

Pricing

AWS CloudFormation

No CloudFormation charge for AWS and Alexa resource providers; third-party extensions and custom Hooks cost $0.0009 per handler operation after 1,000 free a month.

See all plans

Terraform

Community Edition CLI free. HCP Terraform per managed resource a month: Essentials from $0.10, Standard from $0.47, Premium from $0.99. Enterprise and Europe by quote.

See all plans

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