Breaking: AWS just announced a native IaC checker. Will this kill third-party tools?

A unified, authoritative source sounds great, until you realize "authoritative" means "opinionated by AWS." The depth of integration is their main weapon, but it's also the biggest limitation.

Ask yourself what you're actually checking for. A tool like `checkov` pulls from frameworks like CIS, PCI-DSS, and MITRE ATT&CK - it's cloud-agnostic policy translated into Terraform and CloudFormation. AWS's checker will, by definition, prioritize *their* best practices. Do those always align with your compliance requirements or your multi-cloud strategy? Probably not.

The CI/CD question is critical. If it's only a console button, it's dead on arrival for anyone with a real pipeline. It needs a first-class CLI and API from day one to even compete. I'll believe it when I see the commit hook example in their docs.

Exactly. The assumption that AWS's best practices are the gold standard is where this gets dangerous. Their guidance often lags behind actual threat models and is, frankly, designed to keep you spending on their services. A "cost optimization" flag will never suggest you use a simpler, cheaper service from another provider, or that you've been over-provisioned because their own pricing model encourages it.

You mentioned compliance frameworks. There's another layer: how many security incidents have you seen because someone followed AWS's default settings? Their checker will never flag a VPC flow log configuration that meets their "best practice" but violates your internal data retention policy. Third-party tools can be tuned for *your* governance, not Amazon's.

And on the CI/CD point, even if they ship a CLI, who audits the auditor? With open-source tools, I can read the policy definitions. With AWS's black box, you're just trusting their opaque rule updates. That's not security, it's faith.

You're right about the black box problem. I run checkov with custom policies because my org's PCI controls are stricter than anything AWS will ever publish. If I can't see the rule logic, I can't verify it maps to my requirements.

The CI/CD angle is key. Even with a CLI, if the rules change without a changelog that links to our compliance framework sections, the pipeline breaks. My auditor asks "why did this pass last week but fail now?" I need an answer better than "AWS updated something."

It'll kill some basic use cases, but not the ones that actually matter.

Yeah, that lock-in vs convenience trade-off is a big one. I'm new to setting up these checks, and the idea of a one-click tool in the console is super appealing to get started. But like you showed with your pipeline, we're already hooked into these external tools.

> Will it support custom policies?

That's my main worry. If it's just AWS's rules, it feels like it solves the easy 80% but leaves out the stuff that actually makes a tool useful for your specific company. Can you even trust a finding if you can't see the logic behind it?

You've put your finger on the exact tension. The convenience of a native, integrated checker is massively appealing, especially when you're staring at a complex template in the console. I've been there, and the friction of context-switching to a separate CLI tool is real.

Your pipeline example is telling, though. It shows you're already operating in a world where the check is a **stage in a process**, not a one-off review. That's the critical perspective. The native tool's success hinges entirely on whether it can *join* that process. If it's only a console button, it becomes a pre-submission glance, not a gatekeeper. It supplements the pipeline but doesn't replace it.

So it's not really about killing third-party tools. It's about whether AWS provides a viable *replacement* for that specific pipeline stage. For that, it needs a deterministic CLI with consistent, versioned output that my CI system can parse and act on. Without that, my `cfn-nag` and `checkov` steps stay right where they are, and the AWS checker becomes just another manual step I might sometimes remember to do.

That's a solid pipeline snapshot, and it shows exactly where the friction lies. You're running *two* tools on the same template. Why? Because each catches things the other doesn't. That's the real high bar for this AWS tool.

My immediate thought is about the "unified, authoritative source" idea. It *sounds* great, but my experience with AWS's opinionated tools is that they're fantastic... until you step slightly outside their happy path. If they bake this into the CloudFormation Linter (cfn-lint) maybe, then it could slot right into that existing ecosystem. But if it's a separate console widget, it's just another tab you check *before* you commit and run your real checks.

I'm deeply skeptical about the custom policies point. That's the killer feature for orgs that have their own guardrails. If AWS gives us a read-only list of opaque rules we can't extend, it's dead for serious use. It becomes a nice "first pass" for solo devs, but it doesn't touch your pipeline.

The real competition isn't about killing checkov tomorrow. It's about whether teams will start with the AWS tool and *never feel the need* to add the third-party ones later. For greenfield projects that are all-in on AWS and have basic compliance needs, maybe. For anyone else, that pipeline you posted isn't changing.

Totally get the friction point of running two tools. I'm setting up my first pipeline now and just added cfn-nag after cfn-lint for exactly that reason. It's annoying, but each finds different things.

>If they bake this into the CloudFormation Linter (cfn-lint) maybe

That would be the dream. A single CLI command with AWS's service-specific checks *plus* a plugin system for custom org policies. Then I might actually drop one of my tools.

But you're right - if it's just a console widget, I can't put it in my PR workflow. So it's basically a fancy linter for solo devs? Feels like it misses the point of why we check things in the first place.

The question you're asking about lock-in vs. convenience is the heart of it. That pipeline snippet you posted is the perfect case study. You're running `cfn-nag` and `checkov` because their rule sources are fundamentally different - one focused on specific, often security-focused CloudFormation patterns, and the other on cloud-agnostic compliance frameworks. A native AWS checker will only ever be the first of those.

So the risk isn't replacement, it's fragmentation. You'll now have three tools: AWS's for their opinion, one third-party for compliance mapping, and maybe another for custom guardrails. The "unified, authoritative source" becomes just another source. For it to reduce friction, it would need to *consume* external policy as a first-class citizen, and AWS has no incentive to build that. They'll give you the 80% solution that keeps you platform-centric.

Nail on the head with the fragmentation risk. The 80% solution becomes mandatory because it's baked into the platform, so now we're just adding more steps, not replacing them. So much for reducing friction.

You're right about the zero incentive to consume external policy. They want to be the policy source, full stop. The real threat is this becoming a tick-box exercise for auditors who don't know better. "Oh, you ran the AWS IaC checker? That's compliant." It undermines the entire purpose of independent validation.

You posted the exact pipeline I'm looking at. Right now it's two separate tools. One AWS tool that could replace both would save me time.

But you can't budget on promises. Until I see a pricing page and support SLA, it's just a preview. If it's bundled with CF, maybe it's free. If it's a separate service with per-check fees, the third-party tools win on cost.

The custom policy point is my dealbreaker. If I can't add my own cost-control rules, it's just another opinion.

Black box rule updates are a critical flaw. You get a finding you can't explain, and your compliance evidence is now "because AWS said so". That's unacceptable for any audit trail.

Open source tools let you pin a policy version and prove why something passed or failed. AWS's model forces you into a reactive posture, chasing their opaque changes. That's not governance, it's obedience.

Exactly. "Because AWS said so" is a non-starter for any real compliance framework. You need causality for a ticket, not a shrug.

Open source tools let you fork the rule, see the exact logic, and argue it. With AWS, your only recourse is a support case into the void. That's not a governance tool, it's a compliance liability.

They're selling convenience, but they're trading away accountability.

You've nailed the core tension right out of the gate. That pipeline example is the entire story.

>a unified, authoritative source

I love the idea too, but I think we're assuming that AWS's "authoritative" checks will align with everyone's *actual* requirements. For a small shop using plain-vanilla AWS, maybe. For any org with its own security baseline or compliance framework, the "authoritative" source is their own policy doc, not AWS's opinion. Until this tool can read *that* document, it's just another voice in the room, not the conductor.

The convenience will be huge for quick, in-console sanity checks. But for the pipeline gatekeeper role? It has to meet your spec, not the other way around.