Pulumi With Python: Infrastructure as Code That Actually Uses Your Existing Skills

Infrastructure as Code has been dominated by YAML and HCL for a decade. Pulumi takes a different approach: you write infrastructure definitions in real programming languages, including Python. For Python developers who find Terraform’s HCL limiting, Pulumi is a revelation.

The core insight is that infrastructure is just code that calls cloud APIs. Why use a domain-specific language with its own control flow when you can use Python with full IDE support, type checking, and testing frameworks?

With Pulumi, an S3 bucket is a Python object. A VPC with subnets is defined using loops and list comprehensions. Environment-specific configurations use Python dictionaries. Testing your infrastructure code uses pytest, just like application code.

The Pulumi programming model is declarative under the hood, even though the code looks imperative. You describe the desired state — “I want an S3 bucket with these properties” — and Pulumi figures out the API calls to make it happen. Changes are previewed before applying, and state is stored in a backend of your choice.

For teams already using Python, Pulumi eliminates the context-switching cost of learning and maintaining HCL. The same developers who write FastAPI backends can write infrastructure code. Code review works the same way — mypy catches type errors, and the same CI pipeline runs both application and infrastructure tests.

The tradeoff is ecosystem maturity. Terraform has a larger provider ecosystem and more community modules. Pulumi supports all major cloud providers and has been closing the gap, but if you need a niche provider that only has a Terraform implementation, you might need to write a Pulumi wrapper.

For Python-heavy teams in 2026, Pulumi is a solid choice. Start with simple resources like S3 buckets, Lambda functions, and RDS instances, then gradually adopt more complex patterns like Component Resources for reusable infrastructure abstractions. The learning curve is gentle because the language is one you already know.