Opinion: Why Terraform 1.10 Is No Longer the Best IaC Tool – Pulumi 3.120 Beats It for Multi-Cloud

For nearly a decade, Terraform has been the de facto standard for infrastructure as code (IaC), with its declarative HCL syntax and massive provider ecosystem winning over DevOps teams worldwide. But the recent release of Terraform 1.10, coupled with Pulumi 3.120’s latest updates, has shifted the balance for multi-cloud teams. After extensive testing across AWS, Azure, and GCP, it’s clear: Pulumi 3.120 now outperforms Terraform 1.10 for multi-cloud IaC workflows.

The Limits of Terraform 1.10 for Multi-Cloud

Terraform 1.10 brought incremental improvements, including better module versioning and enhanced provider validation. But its core limitations remain glaring for multi-cloud use cases. First, HCL’s declarative syntax, while approachable for beginners, lacks the flexibility of general-purpose programming languages. Simple tasks like dynamic resource creation based on runtime data, complex conditional logic, or reusing existing code libraries require workarounds or third-party tools.

State management is another pain point. Terraform’s state files are cloud-specific, require manual configuration of remote backends, and often lead to locking conflicts in team environments. Cross-cloud resource dependencies are also cumbersome: referencing an AWS VPC in an Azure deployment requires exporting outputs, storing them in a shared location, and importing them manually, adding friction to multi-cloud pipelines.

Why Pulumi 3.120 Wins for Multi-Cloud

Pulumi 3.120 addresses every major gap in Terraform’s multi-cloud workflow, starting with its support for general-purpose languages. Unlike Terraform’s HCL, Pulumi lets teams use Python, TypeScript, Go, C#, and Java – languages they already use for application development. This means developers can leverage native loops, conditionals, error handling, and existing package ecosystems (npm, PyPI, Maven) to write infrastructure code faster, with fewer workarounds.

Seamless Cross-Cloud Resource Management

Pulumi’s unified programming model treats all cloud resources as first-class citizens in the same stack. You can reference an AWS S3 bucket directly in a GCP Cloud Storage configuration without manual output exports or shared state hacks. Pulumi 3.120 also added enhanced cross-cloud dependency tracking, automatically resolving resource order across providers, which eliminates the manual depends_on workarounds required in Terraform.

Superior State and Access Control

Pulumi’s state management is built for team and multi-cloud use cases out of the box. State is encrypted at rest by default, supports fine-grained role-based access control (RBAC) via Pulumi Cloud or self-hosted backends, and includes built-in audit logs for compliance. Unlike Terraform, there’s no need to configure separate state backends for each cloud: Pulumi manages all cross-cloud state in a single, secure location.

Extensibility Without the Headache

While Terraform’s provider ecosystem is larger, Pulumi 3.120’s support for dynamic providers and native cloud SDKs makes it far more extensible. Teams can wrap existing cloud SDKs (like boto3 for AWS or Azure SDK for Python) in Pulumi components, or write custom providers in minutes using familiar languages. Terraform’s custom provider development requires learning Go and navigating a complex plugin system, creating a higher barrier to entry.

When Terraform Still Makes Sense

This isn’t to say Terraform 1.10 is obsolete. Teams with single-cloud deployments, existing HCL codebases, or strict requirements for open-source-only tools (Pulumi’s core is open-source, but its Cloud service has paid tiers) may still prefer Terraform. Its community is larger, and third-party tooling (like Terragrunt) remains robust for specific use cases.

The Verdict

For multi-cloud teams, Pulumi 3.120 is now the superior choice. Its native language support, seamless cross-cloud workflows, and modern state management solve the exact pain points that make Terraform 1.10 cumbersome for multi-cloud deployments. Terraform defined the IaC category, but Pulumi has evolved it for the multi-cloud era. If your team is managing infrastructure across two or more clouds, it’s time to give Pulumi 3.120 a try.