I migrated from Terraform to AWS CDK and I'm very happy. The good: - Tooling for any major language (Typescript, Python)… is lightyears ahead of anything you

I migrated from Terraform to AWS CDK and I'm very happy. The good: - Tooling for any major language (Typescript, Python)… is lightyears ahead of anything you will find for Terraform / HCL. - You can write your code as declaratively as possible (like you would do using TF), but you always have the escape hatch of using all libs available to your language of choice. - AWS CDK uses CloudFormation under the hood, so you get cool stuff like automatic rollbacks in case of failure. - You have access to much more mature testing frameworks, compared to what is available to TF. Because AWS CDK synthetize CF templates, you can also snapshot those for regression testing. Applying good software engineering practices is overall much easier. Most languages are much easier to extend than HCL. - AWS is constantly releasing higher level libraries so you don't need to fiddle with low level API details. When using Terraform, you generally must understand your cloud provider API at a very fine level to implement IaC. The bad: - AWS CDK is written in Typescript and automatically translated to other languages. Even though you can use Python, C#, etc... Most examples and tutorials exist in Typescript. Also, you always must install npm + cdk + the libraries in the language you are using, so using any language other than Typescript means supporting two toolchains, which is a pain in the ass. I started with AWS CDK in Python and now I'm migrating to Typescript. - Some modules only exist for Typescript. - Since CF is used under the hood, it only supports resources supported by CF. Sometimes CF support takes a while. Since TF is just a wrapper for a Cloud Provider API, it generally implements new resources much quicker. - It has its own vocabulary and and ways to do stuff (L1/L2 Construct? Stack? Retention Policy?)... even if you've used a lot of TF and know AWS very well, there's a learning curve. Some cool videos: - An AWS dev shows how to create your own construct and test it (that's the less "toy example" tutorial I have found): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cTsSXYOYQPw https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cTsSXYOYQPw - Same guy shows how to contribute to AWS CDK. I've found that looking at their source code is a great way to learn about good practices and patterns: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OXQSSibrt-A https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OXQSSibrt-A