Terraform with HCL dominates IaC. Pulumi lets you write infrastructure in Python, TypeScript, Go.
Terraform¶
resource “aws_instance” “web” { ami = “ami-12345” instance_type = “t3.micro” tags = { Name = “web-server” } }
- HCL — declarative DSL
- Huge ecosystem of providers
- State management (local/remote)
- Mature, stable, large community
Pulumi¶
import pulumi_aws as aws server = aws.ec2.Instance(‘web’, ami=’ami-12345’, instance_type=’t3.micro’, tags={‘Name’: ‘web-server’} )
- Python, TypeScript, Go, C#, Java
- Full programming language — loops, conditions, functions
- State management similar to Terraform
- Smaller community, but growing
Comparison¶
- Learning curve: Terraform simpler for non-devs, Pulumi for developers
- Testing: Pulumi better (unit tests in the language)
- Ecosystem: Terraform larger
- Flexibility: Pulumi significantly more (full language)
Terraform for Most Cases¶
Terraform is the standard. Pulumi if you want to write IaC in your favorite language.
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