1. AWS CloudFormation Designer

Description: A visual tool within the AWS Management Console that allows you to design, view, and modify your CloudFormation templates.

Features: Drag-and-drop interface, automatic generation of JSON or YAML templates.


2. AWS CLI

Description: The AWS Command Line Interface (CLI) enables you to interact with AWS services, including CloudFormation, using scripts or terminal commands.

Features: Deploy, validate, and manage stacks using commands like aws cloudformation deploy or aws cloudformation validate-template.


3. AWS SAM (Serverless Application Model)

Description: SAM is an open-source framework for building serverless applications, and it extends CloudFormation with higher-level abstractions.

Features: SAM CLI allows you to validate, package, and deploy serverless applications defined in CloudFormation templates.


4. VS Code with AWS CloudFormation Linter Extensions

Description: Visual Studio Code can be used with extensions like CloudFormation Linter or AWS Toolkit to improve CloudFormation development.

Features: Syntax highlighting, auto-completion, template validation, resource snippets.


5. cfn-lint

Description: A command-line tool to lint CloudFormation templates (available in JSON or YAML format) and catch errors before deployment.

Features: Template validation, best practice enforcement, region-based rule checks.


6. cfn_nag

Description: A security analysis tool that checks CloudFormation templates for security vulnerabilities.

Features: Finds patterns like improper IAM roles, public S3 buckets, and weak encryption settings.


7. Stackery

Description: A serverless development tool with a visual builder for CloudFormation templates.

Features: Provides a drag-and-drop interface, automates infrastructure provisioning, integrates with Git and CI/CD pipelines.


8. troposphere

Description: A Python library that helps you generate CloudFormation templates programmatically.

Features: Dynamically create templates using Python code, instead of manually writing JSON or YAML.


9. Sceptre

Description: A tool to manage CloudFormation stacks and templates, enabling automation of deployments and templating.

Features: Stack dependencies, templating with Jinja2, environment-specific configurations.


10. cf-templates

Description: A repository of ready-to-use CloudFormation templates to help you get started with best practices and common setups.

Features: Example templates for different AWS services and solutions.