In this article, we introduce three platform orchestration tools: Cloudomation Engine, Humanitec, and KusionStack. Each tool helps organizations streamline infrastructure management by automating the setup, deployment, and orchestration of applications and resources across different environments.
Explore these tools and their features below!
What are Platform Orchestration Tools
Platform orchestration tools are designed to help teams manage and automate their internal developer platform (IDP). Basically, it’s the behind-the-scenes system that developers use to deploy and run their apps.
Instead of every engineer manually wiring up infrastructure (databases, Kubernetes clusters, cloud services, etc.) or relying on a bunch of scripts, platform orchestration tools automate and standardize this process.
Think of it like this:
- You define how your environments (dev, staging, production) should work.
- The tool orchestrates the necessary resources, configurations, and deployments.
- Developers can focus on coding and shipping features instead of worrying about infrastructure.
Platform orchestration tools are part of platform engineering tools for building an IDP.
Platform Orchestration Tools
#1 Cloudomation Engine
Cloudomation Engine is a pure Python framework built for integrating, monitoring and orchestrating tools and services across different technologies and infrastructures. As a unified platform, it provides an overview of all platform components. Modifying existing services and adding new ones becomes simple and fast.
How does it work?
- Cloudomation Engine includes a native configuration management tool that enables visual modeling of both standard and custom configurations. Configuration files in Git repositories can be automatically validated, generated, and updated based on Engine’s models. Configurations can be displayed as structured data or user-friendly forms, which can be embedded into platforms like Backstage (Related: Best Internal Developer Portal Tools) or used standalone. Platform engineers control available options to reduce complexity for developers.
- With broad integration capabilities, Engine simplifies connecting tools and services across systems. Platform teams can orchestrate services by defining Python-based workflows. Integrations are handled flexibly via webhooks, custom APIs, or standard protocols like REST and SSH. Powerful Python-based schedulers manage complex dependencies, ensuring workflows trigger only when all conditions are met
- Automations are written in standard Python using Engine’s API. Structured data like secrets, RBAC settings, and connectors are stored as YAML. All content is versioned in Git, allowing teams to edit configurations directly in their preferred IDEs.
Website: https://cloudomation.com/
#2 Humanitec
Humanitec positions itself as “the Platform Orchestrator at the core of your Internal Developer Platform (IDP).”
It helps organizations build IDPs by orchestrating tools and infrastructure. Engineering teams define application architectures and infrastructure dependencies declaratively; Humanitec then dynamically applies changes, standardizes deployments, and generates app and infrastructure configurations for every deployment.
How does it work?
- Developers can request fresh environments and resources, like databases, DNS, and storage, without needing to write scripts or submit tickets.
- Humanitec integrates with any CI pipeline and offers operations teams flexibility to plug in any tool or workflow via its open-source driver library. Teams can also create custom drivers to extend the system as needed.
Website: https://humanitec.com/
Compare: Cloudomation Engine vs. Humanitec
#3 KustionStack
KusionStack is an intent-driven Platform Orchestrator, which sits at the core of an Internal Developer Platform (IDP). Developers only need to write a single application specification – AppConfiguration. AppConfiguration defines the workload and all resource dependencies without needing to supply environment-specific values, Kusion ensures it provides everything needed for the application to run.
How does it work?
- Specify desired application intent through declarative configuration code, drive continuous deployment with any CI/CD systems or GitOps to match that intent.
- Enable platform teams to set baseline-templates, control how and where to deploy application workloads and provision accessory resources.
- Enforce security and infrastructure best practices with out-of-box base models, create security and compliance guardrails for any KusionStack deploy with third-party Policy as Code tools. All accessory resource secrets are automatically injected into Workloads.
Website: https://www.kusionstack.io/
Building Internal Developer Platforms Guide
Learn how to design and build an IDP that accelerates software delivery and reduces complexity.
Summary
Platform orchestration tools help teams automate infrastructure management. This reduces complexity and improves efficiency, allowing platform teams to enforce best practices and maintain control over configurations, deployments, and security. Each of these platform orchestration tools – Cloudomation Engine, Humanitec, and KusionStack – offer unique features. Select the one that best aligns with your development workflows and infrastructure needs.
Learn more about Cloudomation as IDP Backend.
Now that you're here...
Cloudomation Engine is a platform orchestrator that enables you to provide self-service tools, automate complex tasks, and gain full visibility into your infrastructure.
Let’s talk about how Cloudomation
can make that happen for you.
