Evaluate Infrastructure as Code Options for OWASP Nest

[arkid15r]

We need to decide on an Infrastructure as Code (IaC) solution for OWASP Nest to manage our cloud resources (currently AWS for production and staging) in a reproducible and maintainable way.

Some candidates to consider:

• Terraform: declarative, widely used, strong community support, works across multiple cloud providers.

• Pulumi: uses general-purpose programming languages (Python, TypeScript, Go, etc.) to define infrastructure, offering flexibility and easier integration with application logic.

• Other solutions: if you have experience with other IaC tools, feel free to suggest them and explain why they might be a good fit.

We'd like everyone's input: share your experiences, preferences, or any insights on what might work best for OWASP Nest. There's no single 'right' answer -- we're interested in hearing different perspectives.

[ahmedxgouda]

I like the idea of using a general-purpose programming language, but we have to consider the pricing of both candidates. I see this headline in the pricing page of Pulumi:

Start for free. Stay free forever for open source and individuals, or scale with advanced editions for your team.

They say it is free for open source, but I didn't that option in the pricing page: https://www.pulumi.com/pricing/.

[yashgoyal0110]

I’d lean towards Terraform for OWASP Nest. It’s declarative, and has strong community support.
Terraform’s mature AWS provider and wide adoption make it reliable for managing production and staging consistently.

[nishkersh]

I think if the team adopts the declarative HCL workflow used by Terraform, Then it will be better choice
For a project like Nest, it offers a good combination of accessibility and safety:

Accessible to All Contributors: The simple, declarative syntax makes infrastructure easy to review for everyone, not just developers fluent in a specific programming language.
Predictable Changes: The terraform plan provides a safe and reliable preview of changes in every pull request, which is critical for community collaboration.
And To address the pricing/licensing concern raised by @ahmedxgouda, this ecosystem has a clear, free-forever solution. It can be started with Terraform, and if the BSL license ever becomes a concern, the project can switch to OpenTofu with zero code changes. OpenTofu is a community-governed, open-source fork that ensures the project remains on a truly open path.
I believe this approach provides more clarity and safety for a diverse, open-source team than imperative tools like Pulumi or CDK.