AWS Controllers for Kubernetes vs Pulumi

AWS Controllers for Kubernetes (ACK) lets Kubernetes users define AWS resources with Kubernetes custom resources. It periodically compares desired and actual AWS state and corrects drift. Documentation lists 74 service controllers, including S3, RDS, Lambda and DynamoDB. ACK supports declarative, version-controlled infrastructure alongside applications, across AWS accounts and regions. Read-only resources and read-only adoption support migration from other infrastructure-as-code tools. EKS users can install managed EKS Capabilities, where AWS handles controller installation and upgrades with automatic updates, auto-scaling and auto-tuning. Self-managed Helm installation runs on EKS, GKE, AKS, on-premises clusters and local environments, providing version and configuration control. AWS IAM authorizes controller access. Self-managed ACK costs nothing for Helm installation on Kubernetes 1.20+ on any Kubernetes cluster. EKS Capability pricing is hourly, with a base rate per enabled capability plus usage charges for each ACK resource managed.

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.