AI Indexes
IT AI Index
September 2026 Edition, published September 17, 2026 · The permanent record of that edition, superseded since. The current standing is on the category page →
Index › Cloud and infrastructure › September 2026 Edition

Infrastructure as code

Asked as “infrastructure-as-code tool”, and as “IaC platform for provisioning cloud resources”, on behalf of a mid-market B2B company. 54 first choices recorded across the direct, paraphrase, budget and scale prompts, twelve models each.
Standing · first-choice share
57%
Clear leader
57Terraform35OpenTofu04Ansible04others

57% of first choices, clear leader.

By buyer segment

The same question asked on behalf of a different buyer. Each standing is computed within its segment; they sit side by side and are never added together.

The standing

Share is the count of first choices across the direct, paraphrase, budget and scale prompts, over all twelve models, for a mid-market B2B company. Ordered by share.
ProductFirst-choice shareNegative rateLabelsQuadrant
01Terraform57%24%85endorsed leader
02OpenTofu35%0%54endorsed leader
03Ansible4%24%38accepted challenger
Show the nine products at 0%, ordered by negative rate
11Chef0%75%12criticized challenger
12Puppet0%73%15criticized challenger
10Google Cloud Deployment Manager Lab in the set0%45%11criticized challenger
06AWS CloudFormation0%29%55criticized challenger
07Azure Bicep0%22%40accepted challenger
09Spacelift0%18%11accepted challenger
05AWS CDK0%11%37accepted challenger
08Crossplane0%9%23accepted challenger
04Pulumi0%3%74accepted challenger
Bars are the share of first choices, 0 to 100Every product with at least 10 labels here. Every product name links to its product page.

Google Cloud Deployment Manager is made by Google, whose model Gemini 3.5 Flash is in the set. On the four share prompts that model made it the first choice zero times of 4; the other eleven models zero times of 44. Lab treatment is defined on the method page; the row is marked, not excluded.

All six head-to-head pages: the top four products, each against each

Recommended versus criticized

Every product with at least 10 labels here, on both axes. The 30% line names a quadrant, not the verdict above: that one needs more than 40%.

Criticized challengerCriticized default
Negative label rate →
01
02
03
04
05
06
07
08
09
10
11
12
Accepted challengerEndorsed leader
0%First-choice share → · lines at 30% share and 25% negative70%
Key
01Terraform57%
02OpenTofu35%
03Ansible4%
04Pulumi0%
05AWS CDK0%
06AWS CloudFormation0%
07Azure Bicep0%
08Crossplane0%
09Spacelift0%
10Google Cloud Deployment Manager0%
11Chef0%
12Puppet0%

What they warned about

Ten of twelve models held their first choice under the paraphrase. GPT-5.4 mini and Llama 4 Maverick changed. A high negative share on a product with few labels is a warning. A low share on a product with many labels is salience, not sentiment.
Terraform
24%
20 of 85 labels negative · 11 of 12 models · 1 hard negative
“Multi-cloud IaC | OpenTofu (not Terraform)” Kimi K2, negative prompt
Puppet
73%
11 of 15 labels negative · 9 of 12 models · 5 hard negative
“using them to provision cloud-native resources ... is a massive anti-pattern” Gemini 3.5 Flash, negative prompt
AWS CloudFormation
29%
16 of 55 labels negative · 9 of 12 models · 1 hard negative
“**Avoid starting new projects with**: Chef, CloudFormation (unless AWS-only and happy)” DeepSeek V4 Flash, negative prompt
Chef
75%
9 of 12 labels negative · 7 of 12 models · 6 hard negative
“⚠️ **Avoid starting new projects with**: Chef, CloudFormation (unless AWS-only and happy), Google Deployment Manager, CDKTF, or SaltStack” DeepSeek V4 Flash, negative prompt

What they cite

Citations exist only for the models that return a source list: fourteen of the twelve in this edition, and all six flagship models on the expanded tier.

Sites the answers cite

71 of 84 answers in this category came back with a source list, from 14 of 12 models: citations where the model returns them, or the search results it consulted. 938 links across 252 sites, every framing counted. Ranked by the number of answers carrying the site or page.

vendor site · Pulumi55 answers · 103 citations · 13 models
vendor site · Guideflow30 answers · 30 citations · 10 models
vendor site · Spacelift27 answers · 32 citations · 11 models
25 answers · 32 citations · 10 models
vendor site · Cortex19 answers · 19 citations · 10 models
14 answers · 16 citations · 9 models
vendor site · Amazon14 answers · 15 citations · 7 models
vendor site · Firefly14 answers · 15 citations · 8 models
vendor site · Facets14 answers · 14 citations · 7 models
14 answers · 14 citations · 7 models
14 answers · 14 citations · 6 models
vendor site · SentinelOne13 answers · 17 citations · 6 models

Pages the answers cite

The ten pages named in the most answers, by full address. A page here is one the models returned with a recommendation, not one the index endorses.

Search against answers

Each company's standing in the answers beside its site's footprint in Google search, one row a site: the products the models named on it with their shares, and the share they add up to; monthly searches on Google, and DataForSEO's estimate of AI search demand (modeled from search signals, directional, not a count of queries to any assistant), for the most-searched of the company's and its products' names (the name is in each row's hover text); estimated monthly organic visits to the site; and its best position in Google's top ten for “best infrastructure-as-code tool”, “infrastructure-as-code tool”, “infrastructure-as-code tools”. US estimates from DataForSEO and Google's Ads Transparency Center. A small company's site, or a mid-sized company's site for its flagship, is marked company; a product on a large parent's site (Google, Microsoft) has no site figures. A column with no figures for this category is left out, and an empty cell means none were seen, not none exist. Two measurements side by side: neither is read as the cause of the other.
Company and productsShareOwn site citedName searches, GoogleAI search demand, est.Organic visitsPaid search a month, est.Google ads, last 30 daysBest Google position
Terraform hashicorp.com57%20449,5009,136173,934$2629
OpenTofu opentofu.org35%1493,600774,792
Ansible ansible.com4%12122,2003,16850,787
Terraform with HCP Terraform4%
Pulumi pulumi.com0%1965,40020910,36846
AWS parent site
AWS CDK 0%, AWS CloudFormation 0%
0%139368,000114,001
Azure parent site
Azure Bicep 0%
0%77301,00047,904
Crossplane crossplane.io0%481,9002173,194
Spacelift spacelift.io0%442,4004853,153422
Chef 360 Platform chef.io0%67,508$1221

Google's top ten for the three searches hold 14 sites; 5 of them are among the sites the models cited here (docs.aws.amazon.com, firefly.ai, pulumi.com, sentinelone.com, spacelift.io). The first result for “best infrastructure-as-code tool” is reddit.com.

How they answered

Six framings of the same buying question, each sent to every model in a fresh session with search on. One row per model, so a row shows whether it held its answer under rewording, what it named when cost was the constraint, and what it argued against. Computed from the raw judge labels.
ShowHide
ModelDirect“What is the best infrastructure-as-code tool for a mid-market B2B company?”Paraphrase“Which IaC platform for provisioning cloud resources would you recommend to a mid-sized B2B company?”Comparative“What are the top infrastructure-as-code tools and how do they differ?”Budget-constrained“What is the best infrastructure-as-code tool for a company with a limited budget?”Scale-constrained“We are a 500 person company evaluating an infrastructure-as-code tool. What should we look at?”Negative“Which infrastructure-as-code tools should I avoid or be cautious about?”
Claude Haiku 4.5Terraform
Two alternativesAWS CDK, AWS CloudFormation
TerraformHeld
Three alternativesAWS CloudFormation, Azure Bicep, Pulumi
no first choiceTerraform
Three alternativesAWS CloudFormation, Ansible, Pulumi
no first choicenothing named
GPT-5.4 miniOpenTofu
Four alternativesAzure Bicep, CloudFormation/CDK, Pulumi, Terraform
TerraformChanged
Five alternativesAWS CDK, AWS CloudFormation, Azure Bicep, Crossplane, Pulumi
OpenTofu, Terraform
Four alternativesAWS CDK, AWS CloudFormation, Azure Bicep, Pulumi
against: Ansible
OpenTofu
Two alternativesPulumi, Terraform
no first choiceagainst: AWS CloudFormation, Helm, Pulumi, Terraform
Gemini 3.5 FlashOpenTofu
Four alternativesPulumi, Scalr, Spacelift, env0
against: AWS CDK, Azure Bicep, Terraform
OpenTofuHeld
Two alternativesPulumi, Terraform
against: AWS CDK, Azure Bicep
OpenTofu
Seven alternativesAWS CDK, AWS CloudFormation, Ansible, Azure Bicep, Crossplane, Pulumi, Terraform
OpenTofu
Four alternativesAWS Bicep, AWS CloudFormation, GCP Infrastructure Manager, Pulumi
against: Spacelift, Terraform, env0
OpenTofu
Five alternativesCrossplane, Pulumi, Spacelift, Terraform, env0
against: Ansible, Azure Bicep, Chef, Google Cloud Deployment Manager, Pulumi, Puppet, Raw AWS CloudFormation, SaltStack, Serverless Framework, Terraform
Perplexity SonarTerraform
Four alternativesAWS CDK, AWS CloudFormation, OpenTofu, Pulumi
TerraformHeld
Three alternativesAWS CloudFormation, OpenTofu, Pulumi
OpenTofu, Terraform
Six alternativesAWS CDK, AWS CloudFormation, Azure Bicep, Crossplane, Pulumi, Terragrunt
against: Ansible
Ansible, OpenTofuagainst: Terraformno first choiceagainst: AWS CDK, AWS CloudFormation, Ansible, Chef, Puppet, SaltStack
Grok 4.20Terraform
Four alternativesAWS CloudFormation, Ansible, OpenTofu, Pulumi
TerraformHeld
One alternativePulumi
against: AWS CDK, AWS CloudFormation, Ansible, Crossplane
Terraform
Five alternativesAWS CDK, AWS CloudFormation, Ansible, OpenTofu, Pulumi
OpenTofu
Three alternativesAWS CloudFormation, Ansible, Pulumi
against: Terraform
Terraform
Three alternativesAWS CDK, OpenTofu, Pulumi
against: Ansible
against: AWS CloudFormation, Ansible, Chef, Puppet, SaltStack, Terraform
Mistral SmallTerraform
Two alternativesCrossplane, Pulumi
TerraformHeld
Four alternativesAWS CDK, Azure Bicep, Crossplane, Pulumi
Terraform
Five alternativesAWS CDK, AWS CloudFormation, Ansible, OpenTofu, Pulumi
Terraform
Two alternativesAnsible, Pulumi
against: AWS CloudFormation
Terraform
Two alternativesCrossplane, Pulumi
against: AWS CloudFormation, Azure Bicep, Chef, Helm, Puppet, Terraform
DeepSeek V4 FlashOpenTofu, Terraform
One alternativePulumi
against: AWS CloudFormation, Ansible, Azure Bicep, Chef, Puppet
OpenTofu, TerraformHeld
Four alternativesAWS CDK, AWS CloudFormation, Azure Bicep, Pulumi
Terraform
Six alternativesAWS CDK, AWS CloudFormation, Ansible, Azure Bicep, OpenTofu, Pulumi
OpenTofu
Two alternativesAnsible Core, Pulumi
against: Terraform
no first choice
Two alternativesOpenTofu, Pulumi
against: AWS CloudFormation, Azure Bicep, Terraform
against: AWS CloudFormation, CDK for Terraform, Chef, Google Cloud Deployment Manager, Puppet, SaltStack, Terraform
Llama 4 MaverickTerraform
Three alternativesAWS CDK, Crossplane, Pulumi
no first choiceChangedno first choiceAnsible, OpenTofu
Six alternativesAWS CDK, AWS CloudFormation, Azure Bicep, Google Cloud Infrastructure Manager, Pulumi, Terraform
no first choice
Three alternativesAnsible, Pulumi, Terraform
nothing named
Qwen 3.7 FlashTerraform
Two alternativesOpenTofu, Pulumi
against: AWS CloudFormation
TerraformHeld
Three alternativesAWS CDK, Azure Bicep, Pulumi
Terraform
Five alternativesAWS CloudFormation, Ansible, Azure Bicep, OpenTofu, Pulumi
OpenTofu
One alternativePulumi
against: Terraform
Terraform
Four alternativesAWS CDK, Crossplane, Pulumi, Spacelift
against: Terraform
against: AWS CloudFormation, Azure Bicep, Bash, Chef, PowerShell, Puppet, Terraform
Kimi K2Terraform
Three alternativesAWS CDK, Crossplane, Pulumi
TerraformHeld
Two alternativesOpenTofu, Pulumi
against: AWS CloudFormation
Terraform/OpenTofu
Three alternativesAWS CloudFormation, Ansible, Pulumi
against: Chef, Puppet
OpenTofu
Two alternativesAWS CloudFormation, Pulumi
against: Terraform
Terraform
One alternativePulumi
against: AWS CloudFormation
against: AWS CloudFormation, Chef, Chef Infra Server, Puppet, SaltStack, Terraform
GLM 4.7 FlashXTerraform
Three alternativesAWS CloudFormation, OpenTofu, Pulumi
TerraformHeld
One alternativePulumi
Terraform
Eleven alternativesAWS CDK, AWS CloudFormation, Ansible, Azure Bicep, Crossplane, Kubernetes YAML, OpenTofu, Pulumi, Scalr, Spacelift, env0
OpenTofu
Four alternativesAWS CDK, Azure Bicep, Crossplane, Pulumi Free Tier
against: Terraform
no first choiceagainst: AWS CloudFormation, Ansible, Checkov, Chef open-source Infra Server, Google Cloud Deployment Manager, Puppet, SaltStack, Spacelift
MiniMax M2.5Terraform
Three alternativesAWS CloudFormation, Ansible, Pulumi
TerraformHeld
Three alternativesAWS CloudFormation, Azure Bicep, Pulumi
Terraform
Four alternativesAWS CloudFormation, Ansible, Azure Bicep, Pulumi
Terraform
Three alternativesAWS CDK, OpenTofu, Pulumi
no first choiceagainst: Chef Infra Server, Puppet, Vagrant
Bold is the first choiceAlternatives are counted; the count opens them.What the answer argued against

The record

One row per call: the version string exactly as returned, whether the model searched, sources cited, and latency. Full answer text is in the free responses file. Download the record
Seventy-two rows: every prompt, every model, every answer.
PromptModelVersion stringTime (UTC)SearchedSourcesLatency
Direct recommendationClaude Haiku 4.5claude-haiku-4-5-202510012026-10-01 08:54no04 s
Direct recommendationGPT-5.4 minigpt-5.4-mini-2026-03-172026-10-01 08:05yes58 s
Direct recommendationGemini 3.5 Flashgemini-3.5-flash2026-10-01 08:43yes533 s
Direct recommendationPerplexity Sonarsonar2026-10-01 08:07yes193 s
Direct recommendationGrok 4.20spacexai/grok-4.1-fast-non-reasoning via vertex2026-10-01 09:12yes237 s
Direct recommendationMistral Smallmistral/mistral-small via mistral2026-10-01 13:30yes53 s
Direct recommendationDeepSeek V4 Flashdeepseek/deepseek-v4-flash via deepinfra2026-10-01 12:40yes2544 s
Direct recommendationLlama 4 Maverickmeta/llama-4-maverick via bedrock2026-10-01 08:52yes51 s
Direct recommendationQwen 3.7 Flashalibaba/qwen3.7-flash via alibaba2026-10-01 07:47no032 s
Direct recommendationKimi K2moonshotai/kimi-k2 via novita2026-10-01 09:59yes1418 s
Direct recommendationGLM 4.7 FlashXzai/glm-4.7-flashx via zai2026-10-01 13:09yes2256 s
Direct recommendationMiniMax M2.5minimax/minimax-m2.5 via minimax2026-10-01 08:57yes1443 s
ParaphraseClaude Haiku 4.5claude-haiku-4-5-202510012026-10-01 07:49no06 s
ParaphraseGPT-5.4 minigpt-5.4-mini-2026-03-172026-10-01 08:48no03 s
ParaphraseGemini 3.5 Flashgemini-3.5-flash2026-10-01 13:17yes1526 s
ParaphrasePerplexity Sonarsonar2026-10-01 09:33yes235 s
ParaphraseGrok 4.20spacexai/grok-4.1-fast-non-reasoning via vertex2026-10-01 09:38yes154 s
ParaphraseMistral Smallmistral/mistral-small via mistral2026-10-01 07:49no04 s
ParaphraseDeepSeek V4 Flashdeepseek/deepseek-v4-flash via deepinfra2026-10-01 11:47yes2430 s
ParaphraseLlama 4 Maverickmeta/llama-4-maverick via bedrock2026-10-01 11:54yes51 s
ParaphraseQwen 3.7 Flashalibaba/qwen3.7-flash via alibaba2026-10-01 10:01no030 s
ParaphraseKimi K2moonshotai/kimi-k2 via novita2026-10-01 10:07yes1015 s
ParaphraseGLM 4.7 FlashXzai/glm-4.7-flashx via zai2026-10-01 09:43yes2422 s
ParaphraseMiniMax M2.5minimax/minimax-m2.5 via minimax2026-10-01 07:58no038 s
ComparativeClaude Haiku 4.5claude-haiku-4-5-202510012026-10-01 10:00yes99 s
ComparativeGPT-5.4 minigpt-5.4-mini-2026-03-172026-10-01 08:16yes58 s
ComparativeGemini 3.5 Flashgemini-3.5-flash2026-10-01 12:57yes828 s
ComparativePerplexity Sonarsonar2026-10-01 08:13yes176 s
ComparativeGrok 4.20spacexai/grok-4.1-fast-non-reasoning via vertex2026-10-01 13:52yes2011 s
ComparativeMistral Smallmistral/mistral-small via mistral2026-10-01 11:36yes108 s
ComparativeDeepSeek V4 Flashdeepseek/deepseek-v4-flash via deepinfra2026-10-01 08:42yes1530 s
ComparativeLlama 4 Maverickmeta/llama-4-maverick via bedrock2026-10-01 12:16yes51 s
ComparativeQwen 3.7 Flashalibaba/qwen3.7-flash via alibaba2026-10-01 12:32yes1847 s
ComparativeKimi K2moonshotai/kimi-k2 via novita2026-10-01 13:05yes537 s
ComparativeGLM 4.7 FlashXzai/glm-4.7-flashx via zai2026-10-01 09:47yes1953 s
ComparativeMiniMax M2.5minimax/minimax-m2.5 via minimax2026-10-01 08:13yes1016 s
Budget constrainedClaude Haiku 4.5claude-haiku-4-5-202510012026-10-01 11:22no04 s
Budget constrainedGPT-5.4 minigpt-5.4-mini-2026-03-172026-10-01 12:35yes34 s
Budget constrainedGemini 3.5 Flashgemini-3.5-flash2026-10-01 09:35yes1232 s
Budget constrainedPerplexity Sonarsonar2026-10-01 12:51yes183 s
Budget constrainedGrok 4.20spacexai/grok-4.1-fast-non-reasoning via vertex2026-10-01 12:41yes228 s
Budget constrainedMistral Smallmistral/mistral-small via mistral2026-10-01 11:59yes146 s
Budget constrainedDeepSeek V4 Flashdeepseek/deepseek-v4-flash via deepinfra2026-10-01 11:06yes1422 s
Budget constrainedLlama 4 Maverickmeta/llama-4-maverick via bedrock2026-10-01 10:56yes51 s
Budget constrainedQwen 3.7 Flashalibaba/qwen3.7-flash via alibaba2026-10-01 11:08yes1066 s
Budget constrainedKimi K2moonshotai/kimi-k2 via novita2026-10-01 08:38yes1516 s
Budget constrainedGLM 4.7 FlashXzai/glm-4.7-flashx via zai2026-10-01 11:13yes2140 s
Budget constrainedMiniMax M2.5minimax/minimax-m2.5 via minimax2026-10-01 11:49yes1024 s
Scale constrainedClaude Haiku 4.5claude-haiku-4-5-202510012026-10-01 12:11no06 s
Scale constrainedGPT-5.4 minigpt-5.4-mini-2026-03-172026-10-01 10:31no06 s
Scale constrainedGemini 3.5 Flashgemini-3.5-flash2026-10-01 13:32yes1027 s
Scale constrainedPerplexity Sonarsonar2026-10-01 11:01yes205 s
Scale constrainedGrok 4.20spacexai/grok-4.1-fast-non-reasoning via vertex2026-10-01 11:36yes1410 s
Scale constrainedMistral Smallmistral/mistral-small via mistral2026-10-01 10:39no09 s
Scale constrainedDeepSeek V4 Flashdeepseek/deepseek-v4-flash via deepinfra2026-10-01 07:49yes2346 s
Scale constrainedLlama 4 Maverickmeta/llama-4-maverick via bedrock2026-10-01 11:49yes53 s
Scale constrainedQwen 3.7 Flashalibaba/qwen3.7-flash via alibaba2026-10-01 08:52no035 s
Scale constrainedKimi K2moonshotai/kimi-k2 via novita2026-10-01 11:07yes1515 s
Scale constrainedGLM 4.7 FlashXzai/glm-4.7-flashx via zai2026-10-01 10:47yes1234 s
Scale constrainedMiniMax M2.5minimax/minimax-m2.5 via minimax2026-10-01 09:47yes524 s
Negative framingClaude Haiku 4.5claude-haiku-4-5-202510012026-10-01 09:03no04 s
Negative framingGPT-5.4 minigpt-5.4-mini-2026-03-172026-10-01 09:07yes44 s
Negative framingGemini 3.5 Flashgemini-3.5-flash2026-10-01 11:03yes1223 s
Negative framingPerplexity Sonarsonar2026-10-01 11:17yes208 s
Negative framingGrok 4.20spacexai/grok-4.1-fast-non-reasoning via vertex2026-10-01 07:57yes249 s
Negative framingMistral Smallmistral/mistral-small via mistral2026-10-01 08:43yes55 s
Negative framingDeepSeek V4 Flashdeepseek/deepseek-v4-flash via deepinfra2026-10-01 12:09yes2341 s
Negative framingLlama 4 Maverickmeta/llama-4-maverick via bedrock2026-10-01 08:25yes53 s
Negative framingQwen 3.7 Flashalibaba/qwen3.7-flash via alibaba2026-10-01 09:03yes1997 s
Negative framingKimi K2moonshotai/kimi-k2 via novita2026-10-01 07:48yes2424 s
Negative framingGLM 4.7 FlashXzai/glm-4.7-flashx via zai2026-10-01 09:18yes1554 s
Negative framingMiniMax M2.5minimax/minimax-m2.5 via minimax2026-10-01 13:53yes1844 s

Normalization in this category

Every judgment call made between the raw labels and the numbers above, listed so it is visible and reversible.

ShowHide
Category-scoped readings
ARM read as Azure Bicep
ARM templates read as Azure Bicep
Azure ARM read as Azure Bicep
Azure ARM Templates read as Azure Bicep
Azure ARM/Bicep read as Azure Bicep
Azure Bicep/ARM read as Azure Bicep
Azure Resource Manager read as Azure Bicep
Azure Resource Manager (ARM) read as Azure Bicep
Unresolved, counted raw
AWS Bicep
Ansible Core
Azure Blueprints
Bash
CINC Automation
Chef Infra Server 15.x
Chef open-source Infra Server
Deployment Stacks
Digger
Google Infrastructure Manager
OpenStack Heat
Pulumi Free Tier
Raw Azure ARM JSON
Serverless Framework (v4+)
Template Specs
Discontinued, still offered
No shut-down product was recommended here.
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