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Tool Comparison
VS
At a Glance
| Attribute | Terraform | Pulumi |
|---|---|---|
| License / Pricing | Free | Open Source |
| Type | DevOps | DevOps |
| GitHub Stars | — | — |
| Rating | 4.6/5 | 4.4/5 |
| Key Features | 6 listed | 6 listed |
| Integrations | 7 listed | 5 listed |
| Categories | Infrastructure as Code | Infrastructure as Code |
Key Features
Terraform
- Declarative HCL configuration language
- State management for tracking real infrastructure
- Plan/apply workflow to preview changes before applying
- Provider ecosystem for AWS, Azure, GCP, and 1000+ services
- Modules for reusable infrastructure components
- Remote backends for team collaboration and state locking
Pulumi
- Use Python, TypeScript, Go, Java, or .NET instead of DSL files
- Full programming language features: loops, conditionals, abstractions, and testing
- Pulumi Cloud for state management, secrets, and CI/CD integration
- Supports AWS, Azure, GCP, Kubernetes, and 150+ providers
- Pulumi AI: generate infrastructure code from natural language prompts
- CrossGuard policy-as-code for compliance enforcement
Real-World Use Cases
Terraform
Provision a production VPC on AWS
Write HCL to define VPC, subnets, route tables, and security groups
Multi-environment infrastructure with workspaces
Define modules for compute, networking, and storage
Pulumi
Type-safe Kubernetes deployment with TypeScript
Define an EKS cluster, node groups, and IAM roles in TypeScript
Policy enforcement with CrossGuard
Write policies in Python to enforce tagging, region, and size requirements
Integrations
Terraform
ansiblekubernetesaws-cloudformationgithub-actionsgitlab-ci-cdjenkinshashicorp-vault
Pulumi
kubernetesterraformansiblegithub-actionsgitlab-ci-cd
🏆 Which should you choose?
Choose Terraform if…
- → you want a managed or commercial offering with enterprise support and SLAs
Choose Pulumi if…
- → you need a fully open-source, self-hosted solution with no vendor lock-in