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  1. Home
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  3. AWS CloudFormation
Logo of AWS CloudFormation

AWS CloudFormation

byAmazon Web Services (AWS)
in
4.4
Market Presence: DevOps Platforms (Transitioning to DevSecOps Platforms), Cloud Infrastructure Management Systems for Communications Service Providers

Overview

Product Information on AWS CloudFormation

Updated 13th October 2025

What is AWS CloudFormation?

AWS CloudFormation is a software that enables users to define and provision cloud infrastructure resources in an automated and consistent manner using templates written in JSON or YAML. It manages the creation, updating, and deletion of a wide range of AWS resources, allowing users to model network, security, and application environments as code. The software tracks configuration changes and dependencies between resources, reducing manual intervention and the potential for configuration errors. AWS CloudFormation aims to facilitate repeatable and reliable resource management, supporting use cases such as infrastructure as code, application deployment, and compliance enforcement.

AWS CloudFormation Pricing

AWS CloudFormation software pricing is based on a pay-as-you-go model where users are charged for the resources provisioned through templates. There is no additional fee for using the software itself, and costs are determined by the underlying AWS resources that are created, with separate pricing applicable to StackSets and some advanced features.

Overall experience with AWS CloudFormation

Sr. Systems Administrator
50M - 250M USD, Media
FAVORABLE

“Automatic Rollbacks Enhance Reliability While Complex Templates Add to Difficulty”

4.0
Mar 5, 2026
Our overall experience with AWS CloudFormation has been solid and dependable, particularly as an IaC tool for our AWS native environments. We found it really helpful for our repeatable infrastructure provisioning needs. We also use it for our change tracking needs as well as rollbacks and audits. It even saved us a couple of times when failed deployments were about to become an incident, but thanks to its native rollback functionality. It does sometimes get overwhelming if the template is huge and complex, but I would say it's still worth it.
Operations Associate
50M - 250M USD, IT Services
CRITICAL

“Repeatable Deployments with CloudFormation Face Debugging Hurdles and Slow Rollbacks”

3.0
Feb 11, 2026
CloudFormation works well for infrastructure as code. It provides strong control over aws resources and supports repeatable deployments.

About Company

Company Description

Updated 6th March 2025

Amazon Web Services (AWS), established in 2006, is focused on providing essential infrastructure services to businesses globally in the form of cloud computing. The key advantage offered through cloud computing, particularly via AWS, is its capacity to shift fixed infrastructure expenses into flexible costs. Businesses have been able to forgo extensive planning and procurement of servers and other Information Technology (IT) resources, owing to AWS. AWS seeks to provide businesses with prompt and cost-effective access to resources using Amazon's expertise and economies of scale, as and when their business requires. Currently, AWS offers a robust, scalable, economic infrastructure platform on the cloud powering an extensive array of businesses worldwide. It operates across numerous industries with data center locations in various parts of the globe including U.S., Europe, Singapore, and Japan.

Company Details

Updated 23rd December 2024
Company type
Public
Year Founded
2006
Head office location
Seattle, United States
Number of employees
10001+
Website
http://aws.amazon.com

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Key Insights

A Snapshot of What Matters - Based on Validated User Reviews

User Sentiment About AWS CloudFormation
Reviewer Insights for: AWS CloudFormation
Performance of AWS CloudFormation Across Market Features

AWS CloudFormation Likes & Dislikes

Like

- We like the fact that we don't need to use any third-party providers since CloudFormation is enough for all our AWS services needs - Automatic rolling back of failed changes is another feature that we love, and it has saved us a couple of times - It also helps us control who can create, update and delete specific resources by applying IAM roles - We also found that it keeps things consistent across different environments

Like

I like the ability to control the versions. Change sets help you review updates before applying them.

Like

The integration is excellent for AWS environment with strong automation possibilities. It also brings strong governance and helps meet compliance. Useful for repeatable, auditable infrastructure organisation.

Dislike

- We noticed that working with larger and complex templates becomes hard to read if we don't use macros or nesting - We also found that debugging sometimes requires manual intervention because the errors are vague - There should be some feature for creating reusable modules and sharing between teams

Dislike

Templates grow complex fast and are hard to read. Stack failures can be hard to debug. Rollbacks take time and sometimes leave resources in a failed state.

Dislike

YAML / JSON templates can sometimes be verbose and complex, and large environments can sometimes result in huge, hard to read templates. It has very steep learning curve and less flexible

Top AWS CloudFormation Alternatives

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Peer Discussions

AWS CloudFormation Reviews and Ratings

4.4

(108 Ratings)

Rating Distribution

5 Star
44%
4 Star
48%
3 Star
7%
2 Star
0%
1 Star
0%
Why ratings and reviews count differ?

Customer Experience

Evaluation & Contracting

4.5

Integration & Deployment

4.6

Service & Support

4.4

Product Capabilities

4.5

Filter Reviews
Sort By:
Most helpful
Last 12 Months
Star Rating
Reviewer Type
Reviewer's Company Size
Reviewer's Industry
Reviewer's Region
Reviewer's Job Function
  • Sr. Systems Administrator
    50M-1B USD
    Media
    Review Source

    Automatic Rollbacks Enhance Reliability While Complex Templates Add to Difficulty

    4.0
    Mar 5, 2026
    Our overall experience with AWS CloudFormation has been solid and dependable, particularly as an IaC tool for our AWS native environments. We found it really helpful for our repeatable infrastructure provisioning needs. We also use it for our change tracking needs as well as rollbacks and audits. It even saved us a couple of times when failed deployments were about to become an incident, but thanks to its native rollback functionality. It does sometimes get overwhelming if the template is huge and complex, but I would say it's still worth it.
  • Vertical Head
    1B-10B USD
    Insurance (except health)
    Review Source

    AWS CloudFormation Offers Security And Compliance Yet Faces Template Readability Issues

    4.0
    Dec 27, 2025
    Overall experience is good with AWS CloudFormation, which is powerful, secure and cost-effective for our AWS environments. DevOps pipelines tightly integrated with AWS services.
  • Software Developer
    <50M USD
    Services (non-Government)
    Review Source

    AWS CloudFormation Simplifies Repeatable Deployments, Though Templates Can Grow Complex.

    4.0
    Feb 10, 2026
    Overall my experience with AWS CloudFormation has been positive, it makes it much easier to manage and repeat infrastructure setups, though templates sometimes get complicated.
  • Director Of Administrative Systems - Clo
    Gov't/PS/Ed
    Education
    Review Source

    AWS CloudFormation Streamlines Resource Management With Predictable Template-Based Setups

    4.0
    Jan 6, 2026
    It was nice using AWS CloudFormation. It lets me define and manage AWS resources using templates instead of clicking around in the console. Basically, I can spin up entire environments of servers, databases, networking, and permissions using a single template file. Once you’re comfortable with the syntax, it saves a lot of time and reduces human error.
  • ENGINEER
    50M-1B USD
    Telecommunication
    Review Source

    A powerful and reliable AWS native infrastructure as code solution with a steep learning curve

    4.0
    Jan 2, 2026
    Overall, our experience with AWS CloudFormation has been positive. It provides a reliable and scalable way to manage Infrastructure as code, enabling consistent deployments, better governance and reduced manual configuration errors.
...
Showing Result 1-5 of 151

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