AWS CloudFormation
Infrastructure as code for AWS
AWS CloudFormation is Amazon's infrastructure as code service that lets you model, provision, and manage AWS resources using templates written in JSON or YAML. It enables version-controlled, repeatable infrastructure deployments with automatic dependency resolution and rollback capabilities.
free
Pricing
Yes
Self-Hostable
Features
- ✓ Declarative YAML/JSON templates
- ✓ Stack management and updates
- ✓ Automatic dependency resolution
- ✓ Change sets for preview
- ✓ Drift detection
- ✓ Nested stacks for modularity
- ✓ StackSets for multi-account/region
- ✓ Custom resources via Lambda
- ✓ Resource import for existing infrastructure
- ✓ Integration with AWS CDK
Pros
- + Native AWS integration and support
- + No additional cost beyond resources
- + Mature and well-documented
- + Excellent for pure AWS environments
- + Strong rollback capabilities
Cons
- − AWS-only (no multi-cloud)
- − Verbose template syntax
- − Slow update operations
- − Limited programming constructs
- − Complex for large deployments