AWS CloudFormation
About AWS CloudFormation
AWS CloudFormation Pricing
AWS CloudFormation includes a usage-based pricing model. Please contact AWS directly for pricing details.
Free trial:
Available
Free version:
Available
![AWS CloudFormation design interface](https://gdm-catalog-fmapi-prod.imgix.net/ProductScreenshot/a3c4f4c6-a287-446d-9c92-24351bc11839.png)
Most Helpful Reviews for AWS CloudFormation
1 - 5 of 58 Reviews
Chetan
Verified reviewer
Computer Software, 10,000+ employees
Used daily for less than 2 years
OVERALL RATING:
5
EASE OF USE
4
VALUE FOR MONEY
5
CUSTOMER SUPPORT
5
FUNCTIONALITY
4
Reviewed April 2021
The best IAC tool for AWS Cloud
If your entire infrastructure is in AWS cloud, then this is the best IAC tool. I would say even better than Terraform in certain aspects if you are not aiming multicloud or hybrid cloud
PROSIt is easy to provision AWS resources and update them. It supports rollback. It also allows seeing the changes that will be applied using changesets. It is transactional , either all the resources are updated or none are.
CONSThe error messages when running the Cloudformation stacks are sometimes not easy to decipher.
Reason for choosing AWS CloudFormation
We have clear strategy that we will be using only AWS cloud. Cloudformation is better compared to Terraform when it comes to state management of the infra, the possibility of rollback and the transactional nature. In Terraform we have to explicitly maintain the state in S3 bucket. Cloudformation takes care of this as it is managed service. Being transactional , we are guaranteed that the infra will always be in consistent state.
Raamnaaraayan
Verified reviewer
Information Technology and Services, 10,000+ employees
Used daily for more than 2 years
OVERALL RATING:
4
EASE OF USE
4
VALUE FOR MONEY
4
CUSTOMER SUPPORT
4
FUNCTIONALITY
4
Reviewed September 2021
Infra-Provisioning Made Exceptional with AWS CloudFormation
1. I make the best out of CloudFormation for performing all my Infra-Implementations in my Dev, QA, Pre-Prod & Prod Environments. 2. It has amazing community support from which I can refer and practice best strategies for my deployments. 3. For detailed clarification regarding the features, excellent customer service support is provided by AWS. 4. It has a well-designed Documentation which helps me to effectively use the features and integrate with other AWS services. 5. The cost management by making use of its Stack creation is marvelous and no resource will be running in the background once you've decided to delete the stack. 6. For automation of multiple resources, I make use of combining CloudFormation with CodePipeline so that I can deliver my resources without any compromise in its integrity or configurations.
PROS1. AWS CloudFormation offers me a spectacular platform to build and provision my organization's infrastructure requirements. 2. It provides me the feature of automation with various DevOps software seamlessly. 3. The compliance standards followed for each resource creation is top notch. 4. I can create, modify or delete the stack which is derived from my CloudFormation Template with ease. 5. It brilliantly integrated with multiple third-party software such as Git, Jenkins, Ansible, Docker, Kubernetes through its fascinating API functionality.
CONS1. Once you create the stack in CloudFormation, you won't be able to change the name of the stack. 2. Deep understanding about the usage of scripts is required in order to establish connection with other resources. 3. For troubleshooting, the tracking of error logs in the associated CloudWatch entries is quite challenging in CloudFormation.
Reasons for switching to AWS CloudFormation
The switch to AWS CloudFormation was made because all of our client requirements were entirely based on AWS Resources. The best way of handling your Infra-provisioning using AWS Resources is exceptionally done by AWS CloudFormation
Martin
Information Technology and Services, 11-50 employees
Used daily for less than 6 months
OVERALL RATING:
3
EASE OF USE
4
FUNCTIONALITY
3
Reviewed August 2021
A valid alternative for IaC
So far it has served us well, but we are moving to CDK in the near future
PROS- Templates are written in a YAML subset, which is arguably preferable to JSON - It provides many options to properly manage the stacks lifecycle - When coupling with Cloud Development Kit, it makes up for a powerful IaC solution for AWS - As with any other AWS service, you can manage CloudFormation in the best way that fancy your team needs
CONS- It's hard to understand that some resources that are possible to tag, don't support tagging in the templates - Templates can get complex over time
Reason for choosing AWS CloudFormation
The majority of the team already had some experience with CloudFormation
Anonymous
5,001-10,000 employees
Used daily for more than 2 years
OVERALL RATING:
5
EASE OF USE
4
VALUE FOR MONEY
4
CUSTOMER SUPPORT
5
FUNCTIONALITY
4
Reviewed December 2022
AWS's take on IaC
Overall good, but not the market leader. Would be good to start using IaC but there are better solutions.
PROSIncluded as a service in the AWS platform, can be used to provision infrastructure and services.
CONSIt's not vendor neutral which can be a problem with multi-cloud deployment which can be a problem, the competitor Terraform has many more features.
Reason for choosing AWS CloudFormation
Not this time.
Reasons for switching to AWS CloudFormation
Much better IaC tool, cloud agnostic and supports multi-cloud deployments.
Pius
Internet, 2-10 employees
Used daily for less than 2 years
OVERALL RATING:
4
EASE OF USE
5
VALUE FOR MONEY
4
CUSTOMER SUPPORT
4
FUNCTIONALITY
4
Reviewed May 2022
AWS CloudFormation
It's been a learning experience working with AWS CloudFormation. When I started, it was a little overwhelming for me with so many bits working together. Now that I have a grasp on it, I can easily deploy really powerful error-free stacks from the AWS marketplace error-free.
PROSScaling up! It's so easy to scale up and scale down your EC2 instance depending on your requirement at any particular time. This saves your costs hourly and in the long run.
CONSNot much is wrong with CloudFormation on AWS. However, it is not easy for a first-time no-code builder to deploy an error-free stack. You have to know what you are doing when deploying a stack or updating it! As a no-code builder like myself, I made many mistakes setting up my first stack. So please watch tutorials and go through enough learning material and equip yourself to deploy your stack correctly.
Reason for choosing AWS CloudFormation
The documentation for the software I was deploying was more comprehensive for AWS than it was for digital ocean. Being a NoCode builder, I couldn't risk going it alone on DigitalOcean without support.