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What's the Difference Between AWS CDK and AWS CloudFormation?

Compare AWS CDK and AWS CloudFormation side by side — features, pricing, and ideal use cases to help you choose the right product.

Compare side-by-side

Comparisons
AWS CDK
AWS CloudFormation
Category

Developer Tools, Infrastructure as code

Management & Governance, Infrastructure as code
Description

Infrastructure-as-code framework to model cloud resources

Infrastructure-as-code service for AWS resources
Best for
  • Infrastructure as code
  • Application scaffolding
  • Reusable constructs
  • Multi-stack deployments
  • Infrastructure as code
  • Environment replication
  • Disaster recovery
  • CI/CD
Key features
  • Multiple languages
  • Constructs library
  • CDK Pipelines
  • Asset bundling
  • Testing support
  • JSON/YAML templates
  • Stack sets
  • Drift detection
  • Change sets
  • Custom resources
Pricing model

No additional charge; pay for resources created

No additional charge; pay for resources created
Free tier

Yes

Yes
Expert take

“CDK lets developers define infrastructure in the same language as their application, with IDE autocomplete and type safety. L2 and L3 constructs encode AWS best practices (encryption, logging, least-privilege) by default. CDK Pipelines builds self-mutating CI/CD that deploys both app and infra changes.”
— Gary McLean, re:Post Top Contributor [profile]

“CloudFormation is the native IaC tool that supports every AWS resource on day one of launch. Use Change Sets to preview changes before applying, Drift Detection to find manual modifications, and StackSets to deploy the same template across hundreds of accounts and regions.”
— Oleksii Bebych, re:Post Top Contributor [profile]
Product page

Learn more about AWS CDK »

Learn more about AWS CloudFormation »

When to use AWS CDK or AWS CloudFormation

Use AWS CDK when:

  • Infrastructure as code
  • Application scaffolding
  • Reusable constructs
  • Multi-stack deployments

Learn more about AWS CDK »

Use AWS CloudFormation when:

  • Infrastructure as code
  • Environment replication
  • Disaster recovery
  • CI/CD

Learn more about AWS CloudFormation »

AWS product comparisons

What's the difference between Amazon Aurora and Amazon RDS?

Both are fully managed relational database services on AWS, but Aurora is a cloud-native engine built for higher performance and availability, while RDS gives you familiar open-source and commercial engines with less operational overhead than self-managed.

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What's the difference between Amazon DynamoDB and Amazon RDS?

DynamoDB is a serverless NoSQL database for applications with well-defined access patterns that need consistent single-digit millisecond performance. RDS is a managed relational database for applications that need SQL, joins, and transactional integrity across multiple engines.

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What's the difference between Amazon DynamoDB and Amazon Keyspaces?

Both are fully managed, serverless-capable NoSQL databases on AWS. DynamoDB is AWS-native with its own API and data model; Keyspaces is Apache Cassandra-compatible, letting you use existing Cassandra drivers, tools, and expertise.

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What are the differences between Amazon DynamoDB and Amazon DocumentDB?

Both are fully managed NoSQL databases on AWS, but they serve different data models. DynamoDB is a key-value store optimized for known access patterns at massive scale; DocumentDB is a document database for flexible JSON schemas with MongoDB compatibility.

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What's the difference between Amazon DocumentDB and Amazon Neptune?

Both handle semi-structured data, but they're optimized for different query patterns. DocumentDB stores and queries JSON documents; Neptune stores and traverses relationships between entities.

Learn more

What's the difference between Amazon Aurora and Amazon RDS?

Both are fully managed relational database services on AWS, but Aurora is a cloud-native engine built for higher performance and availability, while RDS gives you familiar open-source and commercial engines with less operational overhead than self-managed.

Learn more

What's the difference between Amazon Aurora and Amazon Neptune?

Both are purpose-built, fully managed AWS databases, but they solve fundamentally different problems. Aurora handles structured relational data with SQL; Neptune handles highly connected data where relationships between entities are the primary query pattern.

Learn more

What's the difference between Amazon Aurora and Amazon DynamoDB?

Both are fully managed AWS database services, but they serve fundamentally different data models and access patterns. Aurora is a relational database for structured data with relationships; DynamoDB is a NoSQL key-value store built for single-digit millisecond performance at any scale.

Learn more

What's the difference between Amazon RDS and Amazon Redshift?

Both run SQL queries, but they're optimized for fundamentally different workloads. RDS handles transactional operations (inserts, updates, lookups) for your application. Redshift handles analytical queries (aggregations, scans, joins across billions of rows) for your data team.

Learn more

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