Cloud provisioning tools bridge that gap by automating how infrastructure is defined, deployed, and maintained.
The right tool depends on your workflow, skill set, and governance needs — whether you value speed, compliance, flexibility, or deep cloud integration. Understanding how these tools differ is key to building reliable, repeatable infrastructure at scale.
In this article, we’ll discuss the top 12 cloud provisioning tools with their key features and pricing models.
Cloud provisioning is the process of allocating cloud computing resources, such as virtual machines, storage, and networking, to users or systems on demand. It ensures that the necessary infrastructure is available and configured based on workload requirements.
There are three main types of provisioning:
- Manual provisioning, where administrators allocate resources through a dashboard or API.
- Automated provisioning, which uses scripts or orchestration tools to dynamically configure and deploy infrastructure.
- Self-service provisioning, where users request and deploy resources through a portal without direct administrator involvement.
Effective provisioning is critical for scalability, performance optimization, and cost control in cloud environments. It supports both Infrastructure as a Service (IaaS) and Platform as a Service (PaaS) models by enabling rapid deployment and resource management.
A cloud provisioning tool automates the process of allocating and managing cloud infrastructure resources such as compute, storage, and networking. It enables consistent deployment of environments across development, staging, and production.
These tools define infrastructure using code, allowing version control, repeatability, and scalability. Provisioning can be done in three main ways: manual, automated via scripts, or declarative infrastructure-as-code.
The declarative approach is most common, where the desired state of the infrastructure is defined, and the tool ensures that the environment matches it.
Below, we compare the best cloud provisioning tools — from open-source IaC frameworks and cloud-native template services to configuration managers and GitOps/control planes.
The most popular cloud provisioning tools include:
Spacelift is an infrastructure orchestration platform that unifies provisioning, configuration, and governance across your infrastructure-as-code (IaC) workflows. It works as a control plane for cloud infrastructure: you point it at your version control, choose your IaC tool (Terraform, OpenTofu, Pulumi, CloudFormation, Ansible, Kubernetes, Terragrunt), and Spacelift manages the end-to-end lifecycle of deployments.
It’s designed to give teams self-service for infra changes while enforcing guardrails and policy, visualizing resources, integrating with credentials and clouds dynamically, and enabling scalable, auditable workflows.
Spacelift comes in both SaaS (hosted) and self-hosted variants, making it a flexible choice for organizations with stricter compliance or security mandates.
Key features of Spacelift
- Policy-as-code and enforcement – You can codify guardrails using OPA (Open Policy Agent)–based policies: restrict resources, require approvals, enforce PR-stage rules, and trigger workflows based on branch or merge status
- Multi-IaC and multi-tool support – Spacelift supports Terraform,OpenTofu, Pulumi, CloudFormation, Ansible, Kubernetes, Terragrunt, all in a unified workflow
- Drift detection – It continuously monitors for configuration drift (where actual state diverges from desired IaC) and can optionally remediate drift.
- Stack dependencies and workflow orchestration – You can chain stacks, share outputs, and manage dependency graphs across tools and repos, so your infra modules talk to each other naturally.
- Self-service templates and blueprints – Platform teams can expose “golden paths” via Blueprints: standardized, reusable templates that let developers provision common infra safely without requesting every change manually.
License/pricing model: Commercial subscription (SaaS tiers) + self-hosted enterprise
Website: https://spacelift.io
Read more: What is Spacelift? Key Features, Benefits & Use Cases
OpenTofu is a fully open-source fork of Terraform, designed to preserve a developer-friendly infrastructure-as-code experience while removing licensing uncertainty.
It lets teams define, version, and apply cloud and on-prem infrastructure in declarative code (using HCL), manage modular components, and adopt GitOps-style workflows that are all under a governance model hosted by the Linux Foundation.
Because OpenTofu is a Terraform-compatible drop-in replacement, existing configurations, modules, and providers generally work unchanged, making migration smooth for organizations already invested in Terraform.
Key features of OpenTofu
- True open-source licensing – Licensed under MPL-2.0, OpenTofu offers unrestricted commercial usage, redistribution, and modification
- Built-in state encryption – Supports client-side encryption of state (local and remote backends) to safeguard sensitive configuration data
- Full Terraform compatibility – You can reuse existing .tf files, modules, providers, and workflows with minimal or no changes.
- Innovations and community-driven features – Adds enhancements like early variable evaluation, improved import capabilities, provider-defined functions, and modular backends.
- Open governance and community ownership – Managed under the Linux Foundation, feature direction is shaped by community input rather than a single vendor.
License/pricing model: Open source (MPL-2.0)
Website: https://opentofu.org/
Read more: OpenTofu Tutorial – Getting Started, How to Install & Examples
Pulumi is a modern infrastructure-as-code (IaC) platform that lets you define, deploy, and manage cloud resources using real programming languages (TypeScript, Python, Go, C#, Java, YAML).
Rather than inventing a domain-specific language, it embeds directly into language ecosystems, letting you use loops, functions, modules, and familiar tooling.
Pulumi includes a CLI, an extensible deployment engine, SDKs, and an optional managed cloud service (Pulumi Cloud) that coordinates state, runs deployments, manages secrets, and enforces policies.
You can use Pulumi entirely open-source (self-managing state, no vendor lock-in) or adopt the hosted Pulumi Cloud layer for collaboration, access controls, and audit capabilities.
Key features of Pulumi
- Multi-language IaC – You don’t need to learn a new DSL, write infra in TypeScript, Python, Go, C#, Java, or YAML
- State, secrets and configuration management (Pulumi Cloud / Pulumi ESC) – Pulumi provides secure state handling, secrets management, and configuration workflows as part of its managed backend, reducing your operational burden
- Policy enforcement and governance – With Pulumi you can apply policy controls (CrossGuard, OPA-based or built-in) to enforce compliance, guardrails, and approval logic across stacks
- Automation API and CI/CD integration – Pulumi enables embedding its core operations as code via its Automation API, letting you trigger, orchestrate, or test infra workflows programmatically. It also integrates deeply with CI/CD pipelines, webhooks, and workflow tooling
- Multi-Cloud and provider ecosystem – Pulumi supports over 150 providers across major clouds (AWS, Azure, GCP, Kubernetes, etc.) as well as custom or community providers
License/pricing model: Open source (Apache-2.0) for CLI/SDK; Pulumi Cloud is commercial with free and paid tiers
Website: https://www.pulumi.com
Read more: What is Pulumi? Key Concepts and Features Overview
Terraform is a widely adopted declarative infrastructure-as-code (IaC) platform, built by HashiCorp, that lets teams define and provision cloud (and on-prem) infrastructure with versioned configuration files.
Through its core engine, Terraform evaluates desired state, computes dependency graphs, and applies changes safely and predictably. Its architecture separates the IaC engine (open/available code) from collaboration and governance features delivered via Terraform Cloud / Enterprise.
Over time, Terraform has become a de facto standard in IaC — with broad provider support, rich module ecosystems, and tooling integrations across developer pipelines and platforms.
Key features of Terraform
- Declarative Configuration Language (HCL) – Infrastructure is described as what should exist (not how), and Terraform handles the graph and execution ordering
- Rich provider ecosystem – Terraform supports hundreds of cloud, SaaS, and infrastructure providers, enabling consistent workflows across environments
- State management and dependency tracking – Maintains state to track resource drift and compute incremental changes, plus dependency resolution so resources deploy in the right order
- Collaboration and policy layers (Cloud/Enterprise) – Features like remote execution, version-controlled runs, policies, RBAC, shared module registries are enabled in Terraform Cloud / Enterprise
- Workspace and multi-environment support – Ability to isolate environments (dev, staging, prod) via workspaces or distinct backends, and reuse modules across them
License/pricing model: Core is source-available under BSL 1.1; HCP Terraform (SaaS) and Terraform Enterprise are commercial
Website: https://www.hashicorp.com/products/terraform
Read more: How to Automate Terraform Deployments and Infrastructure Provisioning
AWS CloudFormation is Amazon’s native infrastructure-as-code (IaC) service that lets you define and manage your AWS resources via declarative templates (JSON or YAML).
Rather than manually provisioning each resource, you write a template that describes your desired infrastructure (“what”), and CloudFormation figures out the dependency graph and makes the needed calls to AWS APIs to create, update, or delete stacks accordingly.
Since CloudFormation is tightly integrated with AWS, it supports newly released services and features immediately and works across accounts, regions, and nested stacks.
It’s often a go-to choice when your infrastructure is primarily or exclusively in AWS, and you want deep native support, predictable lifecycle management, and minimal external dependencies.
Key features of AWS CloudFormation
- Template-based, declarative modeling – You express your resources and relationships in JSON or YAML templates, which serve as a single source of truth for your stack.
- Change sets / preview updates – You can generate a “change set” to preview what changes will occur before applying them, reducing surprises and risk.
- Drift detection – CloudFormation can detect when resources have diverged from the declared template state and expose drift.
- Extensibility via Registry and custom resource types – The CloudFormation Registry lets you integrate and manage third-party or custom resources, extending beyond AWS’s built-in types.
- Cross-account / cross-region orchestration (StackSets & exports) – You can deploy identical stacks across multiple AWS accounts or regions using StackSets, and pass values between stacks via exports/outputs.
License/pricing model: No additional charge for CloudFormation itself, you pay for the underlying AWS resources
Website: https://aws.amazon.com/cloudformation/
Read more: What is AWS CloudFormation? Key Concepts & Tutorial
AWS CDK (Cloud Development Kit) is an open-source development framework that allows you to define AWS infrastructure using general-purpose programming languages (TypeScript, Python, Java, C#, Go) rather than declarative templates.
When you run your CDK app, it synthesizes your code into CloudFormation templates and deploys them through AWS CloudFormation — thus giving you the power of imperative coding with all the stability and orchestration of CloudFormation.
CDK is particularly attractive to developers who prefer to stay within their language ecosystem, leverage constructs and abstractions, and build reusable infrastructure components with logic and sharing built in.
Key features of CDK
- Multi-language IaC with constructs – Define infrastructure using familiar languages (TypeScript, Python, Java, C#, Go), and build and compose reusable “constructs” that encapsulate AWS resources and best practices
- Synthesis to CloudFormation – CDK transforms your code into CloudFormation templates for provisioning, so you retain compatibility with AWS’s deployment engine, rollback, drift detection, and tooling
- Rich abstractions and default best practices – Constructs provide high-level abstractions (L1, L2, L3) with sensible defaults, reducing boilerplate and helping enforce consistent patterns
- CLI and developer tooling – CDK’s CLI (“cdk”) supports commands like synth, diff, deploy, destroy and integrates with your developer environment and continuous delivery systems
- Composable stacks and cross-stack sharing – You can organize your infrastructure into CDK stacks, compose constructs, import exports between stacks, and manage dependencies across modules
License/pricing model: Open source (Apache-2.0); you pay only for AWS resources you create
Website: https://aws.amazon.com/cdk/
Read more: AWS CDK vs. Terraform
Azure Resource Manager (ARM) Templates are the native JSON-based declarative method Microsoft provides for defining and provisioning Azure resources. You write a JSON file describing the resources and their properties, and Azure’s Resource Manager takes care of orchestration, dependency resolution, and deployment.
Azure Bicep is a domain-specific, higher-level language that compiles down into ARM templates. It offers a more readable, concise syntax, built-in tooling support, type safety, and modular abstraction. Bicep is Microsoft’s recommended path forward for authoring Azure infrastructure as code.
In practice, you author in Bicep (which is easier to maintain), then the system automatically synthesizes the equivalent ARM JSON for deployment.
Key features of Azure Bicep and ARM Templates
- Declarative JSON models (ARM templates) – Define “what you want” in JSON syntax; Azure handles the order, parallelism, and orchestration of resource creation
- Readable, modular syntax (Bicep) – Bicep abstracts JSON boilerplate: modules, loops, conditionals, functions, and type safety make infrastructure code easier to read and maintain
- What-if / declarative preview – Before you apply a template or Bicep deployment, Azure can show what changes will occur (create, update, delete) so you can avoid surprises
- Drift detection and idempotent deployment – ARM ensures that repeated deployments lead to the same result (idempotency). Bicep/ARM also allow you to check whether deployed resources have drifted from declaration
- Native support for all Azure services & latest API versions – Because ARM is Azure’s own provisioning system, new resource types and versions are typically available immediately. Bicep inherits that coverage
License/pricing model: Bicep is open source (MIT); ARM has no separate fee, you pay for the Azure resources you deploy
Website: https://learn.microsoft.com/azure/azure-resource-manager/templates/overview
Crossplane is an open-source control plane framework built on Kubernetes that enables you to define, manage, and reconcile infrastructure and cloud services as Kubernetes native APIs.
Instead of operating as a separate CLI or tool, Crossplane extends the Kubernetes control plane via Custom Resource Definitions (CRDs), so your infrastructure assets become first-class Kubernetes objects.
Platform and DevOps teams use Crossplane to expose higher-level abstractions (Composite Resources) to application teams, enforce standards, and build self-service infrastructure APIs.
Key features of Crossplane
- Kubernetes-native declarative API – Infrastructure is managed via CRDs and controllers, making it a seamless extension of Kubernetes
- Composition and Custom Abstractions – You can build Composite Resource Definitions (XRDs) to encapsulate patterns (e.g. “ProductionDatabase”) and expose those to users, hiding complexity
- Continuous reconciliation / drift self-healing – Crossplane continually observes resource state and reconciles drift (if actual state diverges from desired)
- Multi-cloud and extensible provider ecosystem – Supports providers for AWS, Azure, GCP, Alibaba Cloud, SaaS tools, and more. You install providers, configure credentials, then manage resources across clouds from the same control plane
- GitOps and Kubernetes tooling integration — Since it’s Kubernetes-native, you can manage everything via the same GitOps pipelines, use kubectl, integrate with ArgoCD/Flux, etc.
License/pricing model: Open source (Apache-2.0)
Website: https://www.crossplane.io/
Google Cloud Deployment Manager is a native infrastructure deployment service for Google Cloud that automates the creation, configuration, and management of GCP resources through declarative templates.
You author templates in YAML (or use Python / Jinja2 for template logic), declare the desired resources and their properties, and Deployment Manager resolves dependencies, provisions or updates resources, and manages lifecycle operations.
Deployment Manager is being deprecated and will reach end of support on March 31, 2026. Migrate to Google Cloud Infrastructure Manager (or alternative IaC).
Key features of Google Cloud Deployment Manager
- Declarative resource configuration – Define your infrastructure as YAML configurations that list resources, types, and properties. The system handles orchestration and ordering
- Templates and modularization (Python / Jinja2) – Use templates written in Jinja or Python to encapsulate reusable patterns and logic, and then import them into configurations for cleaner, more maintainable deployments
- Change management and updates – You can update an existing deployment: it computes what changes are necessary (create, update, delete) and applies them incrementally
- Drift control and manifest tracking – Deployment Manager emits manifests (expanded views of resources) for each deployment. While drift detection is limited compared to some modern tools, the manifest gives visibility into what was intended vs. what was deployed
- Native GCP integration & resource coverage – Because it’s built by Google, Deployment Manager supports a wide range of GCP resource types and is tightly integrated with GCP’s APIs and IAM
License/pricing model: Service is included with GCP; you pay for provisioned resources
Ansible is an open-source automation and orchestration framework that enables you to provision, configure, and manage infrastructure (cloud, on-prem, hybrid) using human-readable YAML playbooks.
It adopts an agentless model: the control node connects to target machines over SSH (or WinRM for Windows) and applies modules/tasks to bring them to the desired state, rather than requiring a daemon on each host.
In cloud provisioning scenarios, Ansible is often used to bootstrap VMs, configure networks, install and configure services, orchestrate multi-tier deployments, or execute post-provisioning tasks.
Because it often lives alongside IaC tools (Terraform, Pulumi, Crossplane, etc.), many teams use Ansible for Day-1 / Day-2 configuration and orchestration, not just raw resource creation.
Key features of Ansible
- Agentless execution and low footprint – No persistent agents, no daemons: Ansible uses SSH / WinRM to perform tasks, so target nodes remain lean
- Declarative, Idempotent Playbooks (YAML) – You express the desired state; Ansible makes changes only when needed, safely repeating runs without causing unintended side effects.
- Rich module ecosystem and extensibility – Ansible ships with many built-in modules for cloud providers (AWS, Azure, GCP, OpenStack, etc.), networking, system tasks, containers, and more. You can also author custom modules.
- Workflow and orchestration capabilities – Beyond provisioning, Ansible handles orchestration (tasks with dependencies, ordering, handlers, conditionals) across systems and services.
- Cloud provisioning support and integration – Ansible can manage cloud instances (e.g. spin up VMs, configure VPCs, attach storage) via its provider modules, and often fits into pipelines with other IaC tools.
License/pricing model: Open source (GPLv3) for Ansible Core; Red Hat Ansible Automation Platform is commercial
Website: https://www.ansible.com/
Puppet is a mature configuration management and infrastructure automation tool that enables you to declare desired system state (packages, services, files, users, etc.) and continually enforce it across servers (on-prem, cloud, hybrid).
Puppet works via an agent/model-driven architecture, where a central server compiles catalogs of resources and agents on nodes periodically pull and apply those catalogs.
Over time, Puppet has evolved beyond just configuration: it supports orchestration, reporting, and compliance workflows, making it relevant in the cloud provisioning context as a “last-mile” or state enforcement layer.
Key features of Puppet
- Declarative resource modeling and idempotency – You define what the system should look like (e.g. package X installed, service Y running), and Puppet ensures convergence without duplicating work
- Agent-based pull architecture (and hybrid modes) – Agents on managed nodes regularly check in, fetch compiled catalogs, and apply changes, enabling self-healing and drift correction
- Rich module ecosystem (Puppet Forge) – There are thousands of community or vendor modules covering OSs, services, cloud APIs, middleware, network devices, etc., reducing the burden of writing boilerplate
- Reporting, auditing and compliance tools – Puppet Enterprise adds dashboards, reporting, change tracking, activity logs, role-based access, and policy enforcement features
- Scalability and hybrid support – Puppet is capable of managing thousands of nodes across on-prem and cloud environments, including mixed OS fleets (Linux, Windows, etc.)
License/pricing model: Open source (Apache-2.0); Puppet Enterprise is commercial
Website: https://www.puppet.com/
Read more: Top 12 Puppet Alternatives for Automation
Cloudify is an open-source multi-cloud orchestration and automation framework for modeling, deploying, and managing cloud infrastructure and application services across hybrid or multi-cloud environments.
It works via blueprints, plugins, and workflows to orchestrate the full lifecycle (Day-0 to Day-2) of infrastructure, networks, and services via a unified control plane.
Rather than focusing solely on resource provisioning, Cloudify is designed around “Environment as a Service” — exposing environments composed of infrastructure, networking, configurations, and dependencies that developers or teams can deploy on demand.
It integrates with existing IaC tools (Terraform, Ansible), and layers orchestration, governance, and continuous management over them.
Cloudify was acquired by Dell Technologies in January 2023.
Key features of Cloudify
- Blueprint-based orchestration & modeling – Cloudify uses YAML blueprints (often based on TOSCA) to define infrastructure, services, dependencies, workflows, and lifecycle operations
- Multi-cloud & hybrid support via plugins – Through its plugin architecture, Cloudify supports cloud providers like AWS, Azure, GCP, OpenStack, vSphere, and more
- Day-2 operations / continuous reconciliation – It doesn’t just provision, it monitors, updates, heals, scales, and manages services after deployment
- Integration with existing IaC & toolchains – Cloudify can ingest or wrap Terraform, Ansible, Kubernetes, and legacy automation scripts into its orchestration flows
- Governance, self-service, and catalog capabilities – It enables platform teams to expose environments or services via catalogs or portal-like interfaces, with controls, policies, and life-cycle rules
License/pricing model: Open source core (Apache-2.0); Cloudify Premium is commercial (EULA)
Website: https://docs.cloudify.co/
Choosing a cloud provisioning tool starts with knowing your stack, scale, and team skills. Evaluate tools by how they handle automation, governance, drift detection, and multi-cloud complexity. Look for open standards, strong community support, policy control, and integrations that fit your workflow.
Solve your infrastructure challenges
Spacelift is a flexible orchestration solution for IaC development. It delivers enhanced collaboration, automation, and controls to simplify and accelerate the provisioning of cloud-based infrastructures.
