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AWS Control Tower vs Spacelift comparison

 

Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive SummaryUpdated on Dec 17, 2024

Review summaries and opinions

We asked business professionals to review the solutions they use. Here are some excerpts of what they said:
 

Categories and Ranking

AWS Control Tower
Ranking in Cloud Management
7th
Average Rating
8.6
Reviews Sentiment
7.3
Number of Reviews
17
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
Spacelift
Ranking in Cloud Management
20th
Average Rating
8.0
Reviews Sentiment
7.2
Number of Reviews
5
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
 

Mindshare comparison

As of July 2025, in the Cloud Management category, the mindshare of AWS Control Tower is 1.4%, down from 1.8% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Spacelift is 0.7%, up from 0.0% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Cloud Management
 

Featured Reviews

MuhammadAzhar Khan - PeerSpot reviewer
Unified security management ensures comprehensive compliance for account safety
Control Tower offers many valuable features for managing all account security. I can manage user security and user IAM, firewall, and other security-related tasks via Control Tower. The unified security management is a crucial aspect, and whenever an AWS organization is used, Control Tower is typically included to ensure comprehensive compliance fulfillment.
Moloko Mokubedi - PeerSpot reviewer
The GitOps feature automatically picks up changes from my GitHub projects
There are a few areas for improvement. For instance, getting notification webhooks is not easy. In the free version, there's no straightforward way to be notified once a deployment is finished. Spacelift requires creating a notification policy, which involves using the open policies framework. However, this feature is not available on the free plan. Additionally, for each new project, I need to create a new IAM role, which is not optimal. It would be better if I could use a single role for all interactions with my AWS account.

Quotes from Members

We asked business professionals to review the solutions they use. Here are some excerpts of what they said:
 

Pros

"Security is the most valuable feature of Control Tower."
"It provides a central point for account management, access control, and compliance monitoring."
"The solution's initial setup was easy for me."
"With Control Tower, there are ready-to-use automated templates available, simplifying the implementation of a centralized management solution."
"One of the standout advantages is the fine-grained control it offers in terms of permissions and privileges."
"Compliance is the most valuable feature."
"AWS Control Tower helps companies save costs."
"AWS Control Tower helps to save a lot of work and manage multiple accounts."
"I appreciate that I just have to connect to my AWS account with my credentials, and Spacelift handles the rest."
"A valuable feature of Spacelift is that you can attach labels, and it is a modernized tool for infrastructure deployments. It is pull request-based, and you can see all the Terraform plan and apply logs on the pull request itself, which is not available across any other CI/CD tools."
"Knowing the HashiCorp Configuration Language (HCL) makes it easier to use without issues."
"Spacelift is like an extension of Terraform, where everything can be visibly managed."
"One key feature is the Spacelift policies, which we can attach to deployments to ensure compliance with our standards."
 

Cons

"AWS should provide more resources, examples, and tutorials."
"It is essential to clarify that this isn't necessarily a drawback of the service, but having a clear and concise set of predefined guidelines from AWS for moving existing accounts under AWS Control Tower would be highly beneficial as it would simplify the process and make it more user-friendly."
"There is a sync issue within the organization. It is important that the system syncs automatically instead of requiring me to manually choose sync options."
"The sole drawback is its restriction to enable only one Control Tower."
"AWS Control Tower should improve its fast execution. It also needs more tools for triggering and monitoring AWS services. AWS Control Tower needs more tracking as well."
"While using the solution recently, it broke a certain activity. So, AWS Control Tower needs to consider making the solution better."
"There is a sync issue within the organization."
"There aren't any additional features that I feel are missing. However, it's worth noting that Control Tower seems to function as a layer utilizing standard AWS products in the background. Occasionally, the interface may appear less streamlined, with changes in layout based on the underlying products being used. While this doesn't impact functionality, having a more standardized user interface, irrespective of the background products, could enhance the user experience."
"In the free version, there's no straightforward way to be notified once a deployment is finished."
"If you are a small enterprise organization, below 500 people, I would not recommend it."
"Synchronization can be difficult when using older and newer versions with Kubernetes and HashiCorp."
"Spacelift currently lacks features that can help with complex type deployments and coordination for major deployments."
"The self-hosted version does not have a lot of features compared to the SaaS version, such as cloud integrations for Azure and GCP."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"AWS Control Tower is not really that expensive."
"The pricing is efficient, not overly expensive but also not very cheap."
"The pricing structure is closely intertwined with the specifics of your environment and the billing strategy you employ."
"It operates on a pay-as-you-go model, meaning we are charged only for the services we actively use within it."
"It is cost-effective and the associated cost is quite minimal."
"On a scale of one to ten, where one is a low price and ten is a high price, I rate the pricing an eight."
"The cost is reasonable, but there are opportunities for improvement in terms of pricing for larger enterprises."
"I believe it's free of charge or comes at a very low cost. It's an additional feature. Even if there is a fee, it's minimal. AWS seems to assist customers in gaining a comprehensive view of their security setups within AWS. Using Control Tower is highly recommended, especially as your company grows and involves Active Directory, various departments, and different architectural aspects. It becomes more advisable to leverage Control Tower rather than managing these aspects manually, especially for larger organizations."
"It is a bit expensive product."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Computer Software Company
15%
Manufacturing Company
13%
Financial Services Firm
12%
Educational Organization
8%
Financial Services Firm
15%
Computer Software Company
13%
Educational Organization
11%
Hospitality Company
8%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
No data available
 

Questions from the Community

What do you like most about AWS Control Tower?
The most intriguing feature is the automatic generation of user accounts. Leveraging Active Directory and global company settings, AWS Cloud Tower enables the creation of AWS user accounts based on...
What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for AWS Control Tower?
Control Tower within the AWS Organization does not have a charge. It is free and does not incur additional charges.
What needs improvement with AWS Control Tower?
There is a sync issue within the organization. It is important that the system syncs automatically instead of requiring me to manually choose sync options.
What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Spacelift?
I've never checked the pricing because I enjoy using it for free. Besides the notification feature, I haven't needed any paid features.
What needs improvement with Spacelift?
There are a few areas for improvement. For instance, getting notification webhooks is not easy. In the free version, there's no straightforward way to be notified once a deployment is finished. Spa...
What is your primary use case for Spacelift?
I use Spacelift to deploy my applications, particularly AWS applications and infrastructure to my personal AWS account.
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

Expedia, Intuit, Royal Dutch Shell, Brooks Brothers
Information Not Available
Find out what your peers are saying about AWS Control Tower vs. Spacelift and other solutions. Updated: June 2025.
860,168 professionals have used our research since 2012.