Pulumi

Pulumi lets infrastructure be defined in general purpose programming languages rather than a domain-specific configuration syntax, with a free individual tier, paid team editions and an AI assistant called Neo that includes a monthly token allowance. Usage above the included resource count is billed on demand through credits.

Using a real programming language is the entire proposition and it divides opinion for good reasons. Loops, conditionals, functions and unit tests come free because the language already has them, and so does the ability to write infrastructure code that nobody else on the team can follow. Which of those dominates depends on the discipline of the team rather than on the tool.

Testing is the strongest argument in its favour. Infrastructure defined in a language with a test framework can have its logic verified before anything is provisioned, which is difficult to arrange when the definition is configuration rather than code.

The pricing model is worth modelling before adopting. A free individual tier plus per-resource billing above an included allowance means cost scales with how much infrastructure is managed, which is predictable in principle and easy to underestimate in an environment that grows quickly.