10 Best Infrastructure as Code Tools in 2026

Terraform is an infrastructure as code tool by HashiCorp for provisioning, managing, and versioning infrastructure across cloud providers with declarative configuration files.

Amazon Web Services dominates cloud computing. The breadth of services is staggering—compute, storage, databases, AI, IoT, and dozens more. For any infrastructure need, AWS likely has a service, often multiple. This breadth is both strength and complexity. EC2 provides virtual servers that scale from tiny to massive. Launch instances in minutes, pay for what you use, terminate when done. For custom infrastructure needs, EC2 offers complete control. S3 stores objects at any scale. Static assets, backups, data lakes—S3 handles them reliably. The pricing is economical for storage, and the durability guarantees are extraordinary. Lambda runs code without servers. Upload a function, define triggers, and it executes on demand. No servers to manage, no scaling to configure. For event-driven workloads, Lambda changes the economics. The managed services reduce operational burden. RDS runs databases, EKS runs Kubernetes, ElastiCache runs Redis. You use the service; AWS handles the infrastructure. This trade-off—control for simplicity—is often worthwhile. The learning curve is substantial. The console is complex, the documentation is vast, and the pricing is notoriously opaque. Accidental costs from misconfigured services are a real concern for new users. For enterprise workloads, AWS provides compliance certifications, security features, and support levels that matter. The enterprise relationships and sales support make AWS the default for large organizations. Mastering AWS is valuable professionally. The skills transfer, the certifications are recognized, and the market demand for AWS expertise is consistent.

Helm manages Kubernetes applications through charts. Package, version, and deploy applications with templates—the package manager for Kubernetes. Charts package application definitions. Releases track deployments. The ecosystem is vast. Kubernetes users consider Helm essential for managing applications with any complexity.

cert-manager automates TLS certificate management for Kubernetes. Request certificates from Let's Encrypt or other CAs, and cert-manager handles issuance, renewal, and secret management automatically. Annotations on Ingress resources trigger certificate creation. Renewal happens before expiration. Multiple issuers support different CAs. Kubernetes operators consider cert-manager essential infrastructure for automated certificate lifecycle management.

Istio is an open-source service mesh that extends Kubernetes to establish a programmable, application-aware network. It addresses the challenges developers and operators face with distributed or microservices architectures by providing standard, universal traffic management, telemetry, and security to complex deployments. Istio can be used whether building from scratch, migrating existing applications to cloud native, or securing existing estates. Istio provides capabilities like zero-trust security (including mTLS authentication, authorization, and encryption), deep observability into applications (integrating with APM systems like Grafana and Prometheus), and robust traffic management (enabling A/B testing, canary deployments, and load balancing). It supports multiple deployment modes, including a new ambient mode for simplified operations or traditional sidecars for complex configurations. Istio is built on the industry-standard Envoy proxy and is a graduated project in the Cloud Native Computing Foundation, supported by a broad ecosystem of contributors and partners. It is designed for modern workloads, allowing services running on Kubernetes or VMs, across multi-cloud, hybrid, or on-premises environments, to be included within a single mesh. Istio helps enterprises maintain resilient workloads across diverse platforms, ensuring connectivity and protection, and is extensible by design.

Snyk is a developer security platform that finds and fixes vulnerabilities in code, open-source dependencies, containers, and infrastructure as code.

Argo CD is an open source declarative GitOps continuous delivery tool for Kubernetes providing a fully-loaded UI for managing application deployments from Git repositories.

Terramate is a platform designed to accelerate Infrastructure as Code (IaC) projects, specifically for Terraform, OpenTofu, and Terragrunt. It helps platform teams and DevOps engineers improve pipeline speed, reduce blast radius, and enhance visibility and observability. The core functionality revolves around "Stacks," which allow users to split large IaC state files into smaller, manageable units for deployment, management, and governance. This approach leads to faster CI/CD run times, better ownership management, and flexible environment handling. The platform offers features like code generation to simplify complex codebases, automated deployment workflows with previews and cost estimation, and robust management tools including asset inventory, drift detection and reconciliation, policy enforcement, and incident management. Terramate integrates with existing CI/CD pipelines and tools like GitHub and Slack, ensuring no vendor lock-in and maintaining security by not requiring access to state files or cloud accounts. It's ideal for individual engineers, SMBs, and enterprises looking to scale their IaC practices, providing immediate benefits and improving developer experience by imposing structure and best practices without requiring new syntax.

AWS CDK lets you define cloud infrastructure using TypeScript, Python, Java, or C# instead of YAML templates. Write code that compiles to CloudFormation, with type checking and IDE support along the way. Constructs package reusable infrastructure patterns. The abstraction level lets you work at whatever detail makes sense—high-level components or low-level resources. Developers who find CloudFormation templates painful choose CDK because infrastructure is easier to write, test, and maintain when it's actual code.

Ansible is an open source automation platform by Red Hat for IT automation including configuration management, application deployment, and orchestration using simple YAML playbooks.