AWS CDK vs Pulumi

AWS CDK is a framework for defining AWS cloud application infrastructure with familiar programming languages and deploying it through AWS CloudFormation. Stable bindings are available for TypeScript, JavaScript, Python, Java, C#/.NET, and Go. The AWS Construct Library supplies reusable constructs for AWS services and features. CDK Pipelines supports CI/CD deployment to testing, integration, and production environments. In Visual Studio Code, the AWS CDK Explorer preview can browse projects, stacks, resources, and policies. The tool supports AWS only and provides managed state, policy as code, drift detection, importing existing resources, and self-hosted execution. CDK itself has no charge, although deployed AWS resources may incur charges. Developers need Node.js 22.x or later regardless of application language. Deployments use configured AWS credentials and IAM roles. AWS recommends IAM security practices, and custom constructs cannot guarantee compliance because general-purpose code can bypass their checks.

Pulumi helps engineers define and manage infrastructure as code using general-purpose languages. Supported languages include TypeScript, JavaScript, Python, Go,.NET, Java, YAML, and HCL, with providers such as AWS, Azure, Google Cloud, Kubernetes, Cloudflare, Datadog, and GitHub. Pulumi ESC centralizes secrets and configuration from major vaults and cloud providers and supports short-lived credentials through OIDC. Pulumi Neo can plan and execute infrastructure tasks, debug deployments, generate code, and provide cloud insights. Pulumi Deployments integrates with CI/CD services including Azure DevOps, Bitbucket, CircleCI, GitHub, GitLab, Google Cloud Build, and Jenkins. The CLI runs on Windows, macOS, and Linux and can use self-managed state backends such as S3, Azure Blob, GCS, or local storage. Listed capabilities include policy as code, drift detection, resource import, and self-hosted execution. The free plan includes one user and up to 500 workflow minutes. Essentials costs $40 a month, Pro $400 a month, and Enterprise $2,000 a month. Pulumi states that its platform is SOC 2 Type II certified.