CloudFormation is worse than Terraform in terms of tooling and simple expressions. We had to use a framework like Sceptre and write a bunch of Python functions,

CloudFormation is worse than Terraform in terms of tooling and simple expressions. We had to use a framework like Sceptre and write a bunch of Python functions, and Lambda functions for custom resources (and seriously, testing custom resources is not a quick turnaround thing if your function / endpoint doesn’t send a reply back with the right JSON because you have to wait about an hour for it to time out now) to get what data providers and some convenience functions are already baked into Terraform. Furthermore, AWS change sets even when using frameworks / wrappers are pretty clunky to use compared to TF style refresh && plan. Where CloudFormation wins by design is in deployment strategies like B/G deploys, rolling updates, etc. Nothing stops one from using a combination of Terraform for everything besides applications and to use CloudFormation for app-specific deployment resources like ASGs and Target Groups.