Cloud Intermediate
CloudFormation vs Terraform¶
CloudFormationTerraformIaC 3 min read
Comparison of AWS CloudFormation and Terraform. When to use which.
CloudFormation¶
- AWS native — day-one support for new services
- Stack management — rollback on failure
- AWS only — single cloud
Resources:
MyBucket:
Type: AWS::S3::Bucket
Properties:
BucketName: my-bucket
Terraform¶
- Multi-cloud — AWS, Azure, GCP, Cloudflare…
- HCL language — more readable than YAML/JSON
- State management — explicit, flexible
- Huge provider ecosystem
Decision Making¶
CloudFormation: AWS-only, you want native integration. Terraform: Multi-cloud, better language, larger ecosystem. Most teams choose Terraform.
Summary¶
Terraform wins in versatility and language. CloudFormation wins in AWS native integration. Terraform is the safer bet.
Need Help with Implementation?¶
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