# Infrastructure as code for enterprise buyers: what AI models recommend, October 2026

Gane Index, October 2026 Edition. Asked as "infrastructure-as-code tool" and as "IaC platform for provisioning cloud resources", six framings each, to fourteen models with search on, on behalf of an enterprise B2B company. Page: https://www.gane.ai/index/it/cloud/infrastructure-as-code/2026-10/enterprise

This is the permanent record of the October 2026 Edition, published October 1, 2026 and superseded since. The current standing: https://www.gane.ai/index/it/cloud/infrastructure-as-code/enterprise/index.md

**Standing:** Terraform leads with 53% of first choices; verdict clear leader. 59 first choices across the direct, paraphrase, budget and scale prompts.

## First-choice share

| Rank | Product | Share | Negative rate | Labels |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | [Terraform](https://www.gane.ai/index/it/vendors/terraform/index.md) | 53% | 29% | 89 |
| 2 | [OpenTofu](https://www.gane.ai/index/it/vendors/opentofu/index.md) | 15% | 4% | 48 |
| 3 | [Pulumi](https://www.gane.ai/index/it/vendors/pulumi/index.md) | 10% | 21% | 77 |
| 4 | [Spacelift](https://www.gane.ai/index/it/vendors/spacelift/index.md) | 5% | 3% | 29 |
| 5 | [AWS CloudFormation](https://www.gane.ai/index/it/vendors/aws-cloudformation/index.md) | 5% | 30% | 57 |
| 7 | [AWS CDK](https://www.gane.ai/index/it/vendors/aws-cdk/index.md) | 2% | 25% | 20 |
| 8 | [Scalr](https://www.gane.ai/index/it/vendors/scalr/index.md) | 2% | 8% | 13 |
| 12 | [Crossplane](https://www.gane.ai/index/it/vendors/crossplane/index.md) | 0% | 22% | 23 |
| 13 | [env0](https://www.gane.ai/index/it/vendors/env0/index.md) | 0% | 0% | 11 |
| 14 | [Azure Bicep](https://www.gane.ai/index/it/vendors/azure-bicep/index.md) | 0% | 34% | 35 |
| 15 | [Ansible](https://www.gane.ai/index/it/vendors/ansible/index.md) | 0% | 33% | 33 |
| 65 | [Puppet](https://www.gane.ai/index/it/vendors/puppet/index.md) | 0% | 53% | 19 |

Rank is by share of first choices among all 67 products named; products with the same share are tied, and the order among them carries no meaning. The table lists those with at least 10 labels.

## Each model's first choice on the direct prompt

- Claude Haiku 4.5: no first choice
- GPT-5.4 mini: Terraform/OpenTofu; alternatives AWS CDK, AWS CloudFormation, Pulumi
- Gemini 3.5 Flash: OpenTofu, Pulumi; alternatives Argo CD, Crossplane
- Perplexity Sonar: Terraform; alternatives AWS CloudFormation, Ansible, Azure Bicep, OpenTofu
- Grok 4.20: Terraform; alternatives AWS CloudFormation, Ansible, OpenTofu, Pulumi
- Mistral Small: Terraform; alternatives Red Hat Ansible Automation Platform
- DeepSeek V4 Flash: Pulumi, Terraform; alternatives AWS CloudFormation, OpenTofu
- Llama 4 Maverick: Terraform; alternatives Pulumi, Red Hat Ansible Automation Platform, Spacelift
- Qwen 3.7 Flash: Terraform; alternatives AWS CloudFormation, Ansible, Azure Bicep, OpenTofu
- Kimi K2: OpenTofu, Terraform; alternatives Pulumi
- GLM 4.7 FlashX: Terraform; alternatives OpenTofu, Pulumi
- MiniMax M2.5: Terraform; alternatives AWS CloudFormation, Ansible
- GPT-6 Luna: Terraform; alternatives OpenTofu, Pulumi
- Muse Glimmer 30B: Terraform; alternatives AWS CloudFormation, Azure Bicep, Pulumi, Spacelift

## Sources the answers cite

75 of 84 answers came back with a source list, from 14 of 14 models. Sites named in the most answers:

- pulumi.com: 56 answers, 117 citations
- spacelift.io: 35 answers, 53 citations
- guideflow.com: 28 answers, 28 citations
- cio.economictimes.indiatimes.com: 26 answers, 26 citations
- developer.hashicorp.com: 23 answers, 44 citations
- checkthat.ai: 23 answers, 27 citations
- firefly.ai: 21 answers, 27 citations
- cortex.io: 18 answers, 18 citations

Pages named in the most answers:

- https://guideflow.com/blog/infrastructure-as-code-tools (28 answers)
- https://pulumi.com/blog/infrastructure-as-code-tools (28 answers)
- https://cio.economictimes.indiatimes.com/tools/best-iac-tools/126145308 (23 answers)
- https://cortex.io/post/best-infrastructure-as-code-iac-tools (18 answers)
- https://pulumi.com/docs/iac/comparisons/terraform (18 answers)
- https://checkthat.ai/answers/what-are-the-best-infrastructure-as-code-tools (16 answers)
- https://facets.cloud/blog/top-8-infrastructure-as-code-iac-tools (16 answers)
- https://spacelift.io/blog/infrastructure-as-code-tools (16 answers)
- https://apiiro.com/blog/best-iac-tools (12 answers)
- https://gartsolutions.com/infrastructure-as-code-tools (12 answers)

## Warned against

- Terraform: 26 of 89 labels negative. "Terraform Cloud/Enterprise: Per-resource pricing scales unpredictably with infrastructure growth" (Kimi K2, budget prompt)
- AWS CloudFormation: 17 of 57 labels negative. "These are often fine if you are deliberately standardized on one cloud, but they are risky if your enterprise needs consistent workflows across multiple clouds" (GPT-5.4 mini, negative prompt)
- Pulumi: 16 of 77 labels negative. "If you use managed SaaS platforms like HCP Terraform ... or Pulumi Cloud at this scale, your pricing becomes highly volatile and prohibitively expensive." (Gemini 3.5 Flash, budget prompt)
- Ansible: 11 of 33 labels negative. "Examples: Ansible, Chef, Puppet (when used for infrastructure provisioning rather than configuration management) ... Why be cautious" (Kimi K2, negative prompt)

## Movement since September 2026

Floor: 11 points of share, measured on the calibration repeat.
Same leader: Terraform at 54%.

- AWS CloudFormation: 0% to 6%, +6. Inside the floor by 5 points · rank 10 → 5 of 55.
- OpenTofu: 18% to 13%, −5. Inside the floor by 6 points · rank 2 of 55, unchanged.
- Terraform: 58% to 54%, −4. Inside the floor by 7 points · rank 1 of 55, unchanged.
- Scalr: 0% to 2%, +2. Inside the floor by 9 points · rank 11 → 7 of 55.
- env0: 2% to 0%, −2. Inside the floor by 9 points · rank 5 → 11 of 55.
- Puppet: 2% to 0%, −2. Inside the floor by 9 points · rank 7 → 54 of 55.
- Spacelift: 7% to 6%, −1. Inside the floor by 10 points · rank 4 of 55, unchanged.
- Pulumi: 12% to 12%, ±0. Inside the floor by 11 points · rank 3 of 55, unchanged.
- Crossplane: 0% to 0%, ±0. Inside the floor by 11 points · rank 8 → 10 of 55.
- Azure Bicep: 0% to 0%, ±0. Inside the floor by 11 points · rank 14 → 12 of 55.
- AWS CDK: 0% to 0%, ±0. Inside the floor by 11 points · rank 9 → 13 of 55.
- Ansible: 0% to 0%, ±0. Inside the floor by 11 points · rank 12 → 14 of 55.

## Record

- Method: https://www.gane.ai/index/it/methodology
- License: CC BY 4.0. Cite as Gane Index, October 2026 Edition, www.gane.ai/index/it.