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AWS CloudFormation VS AWS Config

Compare AWS CloudFormation VS AWS Config and see what are their differences

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Contents:
  1. » Base Details
  2. » Videos
  3. » Reviews
  4. » Alternatives

AWS CloudFormation logo AWS CloudFormation

AWS CloudFormation gives developers and systems administrators an easy way to create and manage a...

AWS Config logo AWS Config

Cloud Monitoring
  • AWS CloudFormation Landing page
    Landing page //
    2023-03-22
  • AWS Config Landing page
    Landing page //
    2023-05-03

AWS CloudFormation features and specs

  • Infrastructure as Code
    CloudFormation allows you to define your infrastructure using code or templates, promoting version control, reviewability, and collaborative planning.
  • Automated Provisioning
    It automates the provisioning and updating of infrastructure, reducing the manual intervention required and minimizing human errors.
  • Consistency and Repeatability
    Ensures consistent configurations by deploying the same template multiple times across different environments, eliminating configuration drift.
  • Integration with Other AWS Services
    Tightly integrated with other AWS services, allowing for comprehensive infrastructure management, security policies, monitoring and logging.
  • Scalability and Flexibility
    Facilitates easy scaling and modifying of resources according to the application requirements without significant downtime.

Possible disadvantages of AWS CloudFormation

  • Complexity
    Large templates can become complex and difficult to manage, making troubleshooting and updating challenging.
  • Learning Curve
    Requires time and effort to learn and master, especially for newcomers to AWS or Infrastructure as Code (IaC) concepts.
  • Limited Cross-Platform Support
    Primarily tailored for AWS services, with limited support for managing infrastructure on other cloud platforms.
  • State Management
    Managing the state of your infrastructure can be complex, as creating or updating resources is highly dependent on the current state of your stack.
  • Debugging Issues
    Error messages and stack traces can sometimes be cryptic, making it difficult to pinpoint the exact cause of deployment failures.

AWS Config features and specs

  • Continuous Monitoring
    AWS Config provides continuous monitoring of AWS resources, allowing users to track changes and ensure resources remain compliant with company policies and regulations.
  • Resource Inventory
    It maintains a comprehensive inventory of resources, providing detailed historical and current configuration information to help manage AWS resources effectively.
  • Security and Compliance
    AWS Config enables security and compliance auditing by recording and evaluating configurations against desired settings and standards, facilitating swift remediation of non-compliant resources.
  • Integration with AWS Services
    Easily integrates with other AWS services such as AWS Lambda, AWS CloudTrail, and AWS Identity and Access Management (IAM) to enhance monitoring, automation, and security.
  • Automated Evaluation
    AWS Config Rules can be used to automatically evaluate AWS resource configurations, ensuring they meet specific compliance requirements and taking corrective actions if needed.

Possible disadvantages of AWS Config

  • Cost
    AWS Config can become expensive as it records configuration changes and evaluates a large number of resources, especially in dynamic environments with many changes.
  • Complexity
    Setting up and managing AWS Config can be complex, requiring a good understanding of AWS services, IAM permissions, and compliance requirements.
  • Performance Impact
    In some cases, the continuous monitoring and recording of configuration changes might impact the performance of AWS environments, particularly in large-scale systems.
  • Limited to AWS Environment
    AWS Config is designed specifically for AWS resources and environments, which might limit its usability for organizations that rely on multi-cloud strategies or hybrid environments.

Analysis of AWS CloudFormation

Overall verdict

  • Good

Why this product is good

  • AWS CloudFormation can be a powerful tool for managing infrastructure as code, allowing you to model and set up your Amazon Web Services resources so that you can spend less time managing those resources and more time focusing on your applications. It provides a consistent, repeatable process for provisioning infrastructure, improves change management, enhances resource tracking, and reduces the possibility of human errors. Additionally, it integrates seamlessly with other AWS services and enables the deployment of infrastructure through code, which can be version controlled, tested, and automated.

Recommended for

  • Organizations that heavily utilize AWS services and wish to manage resources through a codified approach
  • Software teams that implement CI/CD pipelines and require infrastructure code to be included in those pipelines
  • DevOps teams striving for automation, consistency, and scalability in their cloud infrastructure management
  • Developers and IT professionals who need to manage complex infrastructures or regularly spin up and tear down environments

AWS CloudFormation videos

+ Add

What is AWS Cloudformation? Pros and Cons?

More videos:

  • Demo - AWS CloudFormation Tutorial | AWS CloudFormation Demo | AWS Tutorial | AWS Training | Edureka
  • Tutorial - AWS CloudFormation Template Tutorial

AWS Config videos

+ Add

AWS Config Tutorial

More videos:

  • Review - Manage and Track Application and Infrastructure Configuration Changes using AWS Config
  • Review - AWS Config Introduction

Category Popularity

0-100% (relative to AWS CloudFormation and AWS Config)

AWS CloudFormation

AWS Config

DevOps Tools
100 100%
DevOps Tools
0% 0
Monitoring Tools
0 0%
Monitoring Tools
100% 100
Continuous Integration
100 100%
Continuous Integration
0% 0
Cloud Infrastructure
0 0%
Cloud Infrastructure
100% 100

User comments

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Reviews

These are some of the external sources and on-site user reviews we've used to compare AWS CloudFormation and AWS Config

AWS CloudFormation Reviews

5 Best DevSecOps Tools in 2023
There are multiple providers for Infrastructure as Code such as AWS CloudFormation, RedHat Ansible, HashiCorp Terraform, Puppet, Chef, and others. It is advised to research each to determine what is best for any given situation since each has pros and cons. Some of these also are not completely free while others are. There are also some that are specific to a particular...
Source: devopsauthority.tech
Do not use AWS CloudFormation
CloudFormation being a layer of indirection makes it difficult to work with in multi-region/multi-account scenarios. With CloudFormation you have to create Stack Sets and IAM policies that allow the CloudFormation service to impersonate other roles. The prerequisite steps you have to take to use CloudFormation across multiple accounts also must be taken just to have...
Source: gswallow.medium.com
Why we use Terraform and not Chef, Puppet, Ansible, SaltStack, or CloudFormation
Of course, there are downsides to declarative languages too. Without access to a full programming language, your expressive power is limited. For example, some types of infrastructure changes, such as a rolling, zero-downtime deployment, are hard to express in purely declarative terms. Similarly, without the ability to do “logic” (e.g. if-statements, loops), creating...
Source: blog.gruntwork.io

AWS Config Reviews

We have no reviews of AWS Config yet.
Be the first one to post

Social recommendations and mentions

Based on our record, AWS CloudFormation should be more popular than AWS Config. It has been mentiond 125 times since March 2021. We are tracking product recommendations and mentions on various public social media platforms and blogs. They can help you identify which product is more popular and what people think of it.

AWS CloudFormation mentions (125)

  • From Code to Cloud in Minutes: How AWS Amplify Supercharges Modern App Development
    When you deploy a cloud sandbox, Amplify creates an AWS CloudFormation stack following the naming convention of amplify--<$(whoami)>-sandbox in your AWS account with the resources configured in your amplify/ folder. - Source: dev.to / 3 months ago
  • AWS Lamba & RDS Proxy
    Getting everything to work with CloudFormation and using best practices took me a while as a different setting could completely lock up the creation of a database. I also ran into issues where the RDS Proxy was created and had no errors in the console but it turned out that, using CLI tools, the network config was broken which was the reason I couldn't connect. To save you from this pain, I created a demo that... - Source: dev.to / 4 months ago
  • What is an AWS CloudFormation Template?
    CloudFormation is an IaC AWS-native service that helps you model and configure your resources declaratively. Using CloudFormation, you can manage and operate your AWS infrastructure efficiently, so you can spend less time managing infrastructure. - Source: dev.to / 8 months ago
  • Master Secure File Uploads to AWS S3 in Node.js with Express and Multer
    Basic knowledge of AWS and CloudFormation. - Source: dev.to / 9 months ago
  • AWS Serverless Security: Preventing HTTP Flood DDoS Attack
    AWS WAF Security Automations use AWS CloudFormation to quickly configure AWS WAF rules that help block these common types of attacks:. - Source: dev.to / 10 months ago
View more

AWS Config mentions (22)

  • AWS Config vs Kubernetes Native Policy Engines: Who Governs What?
    AWS Config is a service that continuously monitors and records AWS resource configurations and evaluates them against desired states. Think of it as a compliance engine: it tracks configuration changes and helps you answer questions like: - Are my EKS clusters configured securely? - Are ECS tasks using only approved IAM roles? - Is anything exposed to the public internet unintentionally? - Source: dev.to / 5 months ago
  • AWS Config: Automate Your Cloud Compliance and Security
    Ref: What is AWS config Credits to aws for the cover page image I used. - Source: dev.to / 6 months ago
  • 🚀🚀Setting Up AWS Firewall Manager Used For Auditing Security Groups in AWS Organization accounts.
    Ii) AWS Config must be enabled in all member accounts (Firewall Manager relies on AWS Config for resource visibility). - Source: dev.to / 7 months ago
  • What is Configuration Drift?
    Cloud providers offer services to detect, manage, and remediate configuration drift in their environments. Because cloud environments often become large and complex, services such as AWS Config, Azure Policy, and Workload Manager Evaluation can help continuously monitor and evaluate cloud resources and their configurations according to rules. - Source: dev.to / 11 months ago
  • Scanning AWS S3 Buckets for Security Vulnerabilities
    Regularly audit and monitor your S3 bucket configurations: Establish a routine for auditing and monitoring your S3 bucket configurations. You can also set up alerts for any changes to permissions or policies, enabling timely detection and response to potential security incidents. Additionally, you can utilize tools and services such as AWS Config, which helps you assess, audit, and evaluate the configuration of... - Source: dev.to / about 1 year ago
View more

What are some alternatives?

When comparing AWS CloudFormation and AWS Config, you can also consider the following products

AWS Lambda - Automatic, event-driven compute service

Amazon CloudWatch - Amazon CloudWatch is a monitoring service for AWS cloud resources and the applications you run on AWS.

Codeship - Codeship is a fast and secure hosted Continuous Delivery platform that scales with your needs.

Google StackDriver - Stackdriver provides monitoring services for cloud-powered applications.

Bamboo - Bamboo is a continuous integration and deployment tool that ties automated builds, tests and releases together in a single workflow.

Amazon EC2 Systems Manager - Learn how to shorten the time to detect and resolve problems. View operational data from multiple AWS services and automate tasks across AWS resources.

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