Hey everyone,
We're on the lookout for alternatives to AWS Copilot CLI since it's set to be deprecated in February 2025. Copilot has done a great job for us in managing ECS services, VPCs, and deployments across different environments, especially with its ability to generate clean CloudFormation templates. We want to keep using those templates but need a new orchestration tool to deploy and manage them efficiently without having to rewrite everything in Terraform or CDK.
Here's what I've checked out so far:
- **Sceptre**: It's a strong choice for multi-stack orchestration, supporting dependencies and stack outputs, but there's a bit of a learning curve with its configuration.
- **AWS Rain**: This one's super lightweight as it lets you deploy CFN templates directly, plus it has handy features like interactive inputs and log tailing. The downside is that it doesn't natively support multi-stack orchestration.
To sum up, we need something that can:
- Reuse our existing Copilot-generated CloudFormation templates as-is.
- Create and manage multiple environments, including testing and production.
- Handle networking and service stacks with possible cross-stack references.
- Avoid using CDK or Terraform for the time being.
I'd love to hear your experiences and suggestions for other AWS-native or third-party tools that could fit the bill without needing a major rewrite. Thanks a lot!
3 Answers
Is there a specific reason you don’t want to use your existing templates as is? I’m curious about your deployment pipeline, and why you're avoiding CDK or Terraform at this time.
Also, where did you see that Copilot is getting deprecated? I found a GitHub repo that's still active, and the official post about it seems gone.
Maybe reconsider why you ended up needing a replacement! I’d genuinely recommend sticking with plain CloudFormation, CDK, or Terraform if you're open to that. They’re all pretty solid options.
Good point! We're going with plain CloudFormation for now since it aligns with our team's skills and budget. We might explore CDK or Terraform later when we grow and it makes more sense.
Have you checked out NeuronSphere? It enables management across multiple accounts and stacks and allows you to use various IAC providers in one deployment setup. So you could integrate CDK, CloudFormation, and custom code together.
Thanks for the tip! I looked it up, but I only found info suggesting it’s more about platform engineering for data. Definitely something to consider!
Thanks for reaching out! I found confirmation about the deprecation here: [http://repost.aws/questions/QUaJsCt9mWTH-NsbyRlTboSA/is-aws-copilot-deprecated](http://repost.aws/questions/QUaJsCt9mWTH-NsbyRlTboSA/is-aws-copilot-deprecated). We’re hoping to stick with something that doesn’t require heavy programming knowledge, and we’re also limited by Terraform’s pricing structure.