It’s not an alternative at all. Terraform CDK is basically TypeScript transpired to HCL. You can codegen TypeScript bindings for any provider. And then write normal TypeScript.

The providers for tofu are by design the same as for terraform.

Also, for large providers like AWS, GCP, Azure, etc - these are often largely authored by the hyperscaler themselves, for better or worse.

It does. What are you looking for in a more advanced AWS provider?

Kubernetes has a few things, including cdk8s. Yoke looks promising too.

Not stated in the most diplomatic way, but I do agree. Having used CDK (not cdktf) and now being forced back to Terraform feels like going back to the stone age. It is absolutely obvious to me that generating infrastructure definitions from a regular, testable language using all the same tools, techniques and distribution mechanisms that you use for all your other software development is the superior way. Being able to piggyback off of the vast ecosystem of Terraform providers was a really clever move, although I understand it led to some rough edges.

I kind of like it but I always found it kind of clunky how it's ultimately just generating JSON/HCL anyway. For instance, you can't data source then use code to transform and send it to a resource since it has to transpile first.

That also means you end up with things like the language's native JSON not doing what you expect and having to use a special Terraform function call.