Infracost
A cloud cost management tool that integrates into engineering workflows to provide real-time cost estimates for infrastructure changes before deployment.
| Category | Cost Security & FinOps |
|---|---|
| Last Commit | 1 year ago |
| Last page update | 19 days ago |
| Pricing Details | Free for open source projects; enterprise pricing available for larger organizations. |
| Target Audience | DevOps teams, FinOps teams, cloud engineers. |
Infracost manages cloud cost management by integrating directly into the engineering workflow, providing real-time cost estimates for infrastructure changes before they are deployed. This tool leverages Terraform and other Infrastructure as Code (IaC) tools to scan code changes and estimate their impact on cloud costs, checking against over 3 million prices to generate accurate and understandable cost breakdowns.
The technical architecture of Infracost involves integration with GitHub, GitLab, and other CI/CD pipelines. When a pull request is opened, Infracost automatically generates a cost estimate and detailed breakdown of the resources involved, using commands like infracost breakdown and infracost diff to show the cost differences between the current and planned states. This integration ensures that engineers can see the cost implications of their changes directly within their workflow, whether in the terminal, VS Code, or as comments in pull requests.
Key operational considerations include the enforcement of budget checks and tagging policies. Infracost checks code changes against centrally set budgets and triggers approval workflows if the cost increase exceeds defined limits. It also enforces 100% tag coverage, identifying and blocking non-conforming resources to maintain compliance with FinOps policies. Additionally, Infracost supports custom enterprise pricing, including Enterprise Discount Programs (EDPs) and Enterprise Agreements (EAs), making it suitable for large-scale enterprise environments.
From a technical standpoint, Infracost supports over 1,100 Terraform resources across AWS, Azure, and Google Cloud, and can estimate costs for usage-based resources like AWS S3 or Lambda. However, the tool's effectiveness can be limited by the complexity and scale of the infrastructure being managed, as well as the accuracy of the pricing data it relies on. Despite these considerations, Infracost's automated cost estimation and policy enforcement make it a powerful tool for proactive FinOps management.