AWS CDK and Terraform can both provision AWS infrastructure, but they represent two different ways of thinking about IaC.
CDK is a code-first approach (real programming languages + abstractions) that synthesizes to CloudFormation, which can feel natural for software-heavy teams building on AWS. Terraform is declarative and provider-driven, with a workflow that many teams prefer when they want portability beyond AWS, a broad ecosystem, and a consistent way to manage infrastructure across environments.
In the full comparison, we break down:
- The core mental model difference: CDK constructs vs Terraform configuration + state
- What day-2 operations look like: drift, updates, and “what changed?” debugging
- Team and org fit: platform teams, app teams, and multi-account/multi-env setups
- When a hybrid approach makes sense (e.g., Terraform for baseline infra, CDK for app-owned stacks)
➡️ Read the full article on our blog:
https://spacelift.io/blog/aws-cdk-vs-terraform
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