head to head · open source
Pulumi vs boto3
Pulumi has 25,694 GitHub stars, 1,431 forks, 2,419 open issues and last shipped yesterday. boto3 has 9,902 stars, 1,995 forks, 200 open issues and last shipped yesterday. Pulumi leads on adoption by 159% (25,694 vs 9,902 stars). Pulumi is written in Go under Apache-2.0; boto3 is written in Python under Apache-2.0. Pulumi has attracted 6% as many forks as stars, boto3 20%. Pulumi was the more recently maintained of the two, and both are self-hostable with no licence fee. The two share 2 topic tags (aws, cloud), so they are genuine substitutes rather than adjacent tools.
Two open source projects, one decision. Both are free and self-hostable — the differences are community size, license terms, language stack and release pace.
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Side by side
| Pulumi | boto3 | |
|---|---|---|
| GitHub stars | ★ 26K | ★ 9.9K |
| License | Apache-2.0 | Apache-2.0 |
| Written in | Go | Python |
| Last push | 2026-09-17 | 2026-09-17 |
| Forks | ⑂ 1.4K | ⑂ 2.0K |
| Self-hosting | Yes | Yes |
| Data ownership | Your server | Your server |
pick Pulumi if
- You weight community size — 26K stars and counting
- You want the Apache-2.0 license terms
- Your stack matches Go
- You value the larger contributor base for long-term maintenance
pick boto3 if
- You want the boto3 feature set and don't need the biggest community
- You prefer the Apache-2.0 license terms
- Your stack matches Python
- You evaluated both and boto3 fits your workflow better
About Pulumi
Pulumi is an open source infrastructure as code tool that lets teams define and deploy cloud infrastructure using general purpose programming languages instead of YAML, aimed at developers, platform engineers, and agents working across AWS, Azure, Google Cloud Platform, and Kubernetes.
read the full Pulumi overview →
About boto3
Boto3 is the Amazon Web Services Software Development Kit for Python, letting Python developers write software that uses AWS services such as Amazon S3 and Amazon EC2.
read the full boto3 overview →
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Frequently asked questions
Is Pulumi or boto3 more popular?
Pulumi has 25,694 GitHub stars and boto3 has 9,902. Pulumi has the larger community by that measure.
Are Pulumi and boto3 free?
Both are open source. Pulumi is licensed under Apache-2.0 and boto3 under Apache-2.0. Neither carries a licence fee.
What is the difference between Pulumi and boto3?
Pulumi is written in Go and boto3 in Python. The practical differences are community size, licence terms, language stack and release cadence — all compared in the table above.
Which should I choose, Pulumi or boto3?
Choose Pulumi if you want the larger community (25,694 stars) or its Apache-2.0 licence terms. Choose boto3 if its feature set, stack or Apache-2.0 licence fits better. Both are self-hostable.