The short answer (because I know you're scrolling)

Learn Terraform. If you're a beginner picking your first IaC tool in 2026, learn Terraform. CloudFormation is fine, it's not bad, but the job market and the ecosystem have decided. Terraform won.

If you're already at a company using CloudFormation, you don't need to migrate. Stay where you are. Both tools do the same job, just differently.

The rest of this post is the long version with the receipts.

Syntax — HCL vs JSON/YAML

Here's a Terraform resource for an S3 bucket:

resource "aws_s3_bucket" "logs" { bucket = "my-app-logs" tags = { Environment = "prod" Owner = "devops-team" } }

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Same thing in CloudFormation YAML:

Resources : LogsBucket : Type : AWS::S3::Bucket Properties : BucketName : my-app-logs Tags : - Key : Environment Value : prod - Key : Owner Value : devops-team

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Both are fine. HCL is friendlier once you're used to it.…