AWS CloudFormation
Speed up cloud provisioning with infrastructure as code
- Also known as
- aws-cloudformation
What is AWS CloudFormation?
AWS CloudFormation offers an easy and consistent way to model, provision, and manage a collection of related AWS and third-party resources by treating infrastructure as code. You only pay for what you use with no minimum fees and no required upfront commitments.
AWS CloudFormation pricing
Plans, per-tier features and add-ons, dated and linked to live pricing. Pricing changes often; always verify at source before you rely on it.
Free for AWS resources. Third-party providers: free first 30 seconds per operation, then $0.00008/second
AWS Resource Providers
FreeNo CloudFormation charge for AWS::* and Alexa::* resources; pay only for underlying AWS resources (EC2, load balancers, etc.)
- EC2 instances
- Elastic Load Balancing
- Other standard AWS services
Third-party Resource Providers
Handler operations for non-AWS resources
- free_threshold
- First 30 seconds per operation
- CREATE operations
- UPDATE operations
- DELETE operations
- READ operations
- LIST operations
- Hook operations
What AWS CloudFormation does
The capabilities that matter for infrastructure as code tools, normalised so it lines up with every alternative. “-” means we haven't confirmed it, not that it's missing.
- Paradigm
- Declarative DSL
- Language
- -
- Multicloud / cloud-agnostic
- ✗
- State management
- Vendor-managed
- Pluggable provider ecosystem
- ✓
- Policy as code
- -
- Drift detection
- -
- GitOps continuous reconciliation
- -
- Managed SaaS offering
- ✓
- Hosting
- Cloud only
- Import existing resources
- -
- Open-source engine
- -
- CNCF maturity
- -
Platform & deployment
Independently observed- Cloud / SaaS
Integrations (4)
Independently observed- AWS services
- CloudFormation Registry
- Third-party resource providers
- Community libraries
AWS CloudFormation alternatives
Other infrastructure as code tools we track, ranked by the same independent score.
- CrossplaneThe Cloud-Native Framework for Platform Engineeringlow · 14%
- OpenTofuOpen-Source Infrastructure as Codelow · 27%
- PulumiInfrastructure as Code in Any Programming Languagemedium · 54%
- TerraformAutomate Infrastructure on Any Cloudlow · 35%
- AWS CDKOpen Source Development Frameworklow · 39%
- TerragruntThe Open Source IaC Orchestrator Platform Teams Trustlow · 27%
The Vioscale score: one lens on the evidence
Not user reviews and not a paid placement: a confidence-weighted blend of the independent signals below (adoption, activity, security posture, and more), which you can sort and re-weight yourself. Vendors can correct their listing but can never move their rank, and stars are weighted low as a vanity metric. It is one way to read the evidence for AWS CloudFormation, not the verdict.
| Signal | Score | Weight | Contribution | Evidence |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Pricing Transparency | 100 | 8.00 | 800.0 | ✓ |
| Capabilities | 46 | 16.00 | 733.1 | ✓ |
| Price Level | 80 | 6.00 | 480.0 | ✓ |
| Reliability | 50 | 8.00 | 400.0 | ✓ |
| Integrations | 20 | 8.00 | 160.8 | ✓ |
| Security Posture | 5 | 13.00 | 0.0 | - |
Computed . Re-weight it by intent, or see the full method.
All data & sourcesshow ↓
Every value we hold, with its source, retrieval date, and confidence. This is the evidence behind the score: don't trust it, verify it.
Features
| Attribute | Value | Evidence |
|---|---|---|
| Capabilities | {"hosting":"cloud","paradigm":"declarative_dsl","multicloud":false,"state_management":"vendor_managed","provider_ecosystem":true,"managed_saas_offering":true} | mediumsource · 2026-08-01 · 60% |
Integrations
| Attribute | Value | Evidence |
|---|---|---|
| Count | 4 | mediumsource · 2026-08-01 · 60% |
Pricing
Reliability
| Attribute | Value | Evidence |
|---|---|---|
| Status page | Yes | mediumsource · 2026-08-01 · 60% |
Security
| Attribute | Value | Evidence |
|---|---|---|
| Disclosure policy | Yes | mediumsource · 2026-08-01 · 60% |