CloudBurn

About CloudBurn

CloudBurn is a proactive cost intelligence platform designed for engineering teams using Terraform or AWS CDK. It shifts cloud cost management left in the development lifecycle, preventing expensive infrastructure mistakes before they ever reach production. The core problem it solves is the reactive nature of cloud spending: most teams discover budget overruns weeks later on their AWS bill, after the costly resources are already running and the money is spent. CloudBurn changes this paradigm by integrating directly into the code review process. It automatically analyzes infrastructure-as-code changes in pull requests, calculates the precise monthly cost impact using real-time AWS pricing data, and posts a clear, actionable report as a comment. This gives developers and reviewers immediate financial context, enabling them to discuss, adjust, and optimize costs when changes are easiest and cheapest to make—during the code review, not during a post-deployment fire drill. By embedding cost visibility into the existing GitHub workflow, CloudBurn empowers teams to practice automated FinOps, foster cost-aware development culture, and achieve immediate ROI by catching misconfigurations that would otherwise silently inflate the monthly bill.

Features of CloudBurn

Automated Pull Request Cost Analysis

CloudBurn automatically triggers a cost analysis on every pull request containing Terraform or AWS CDK changes. There's no manual intervention required. Once integrated via a GitHub Action, the tool detects infrastructure diffs, processes them, and delivers a detailed cost report directly within the PR conversation. This seamless automation ensures that cost review becomes a consistent, non-negotiable part of your CI/CD workflow, providing continuous feedback without slowing down development velocity.

Real-Time AWS Pricing Data

Cost estimates are not based on stale or generic list prices. CloudBurn pulls real-time pricing data specific to your configured AWS region and accounts for your actual usage patterns. This ensures the monthly cost projections in your PR comments are accurate and reflective of what you will actually be billed, accounting for factors like instance types, storage volumes, and services like Fargate, so you can make decisions with complete confidence.

Resource-Level Cost Breakdown

The tool provides granular visibility beyond a single total. Its reports break down costs per resource, showing the current cost (if any) alongside the new projected monthly cost and the delta. This detailed breakdown, as seen in example reports listing EC2 instances and Fargate tasks, allows developers to instantly identify which specific change is driving cost increases and facilitates targeted optimization discussions during review.

GitHub-Native Integration & Security

CloudBurn is built as a first-class citizen in the GitHub ecosystem. Installation and billing are handled entirely through the GitHub Marketplace, and permissions are managed via standard GitHub OAuth. This means no separate logins, no manual billing setups, and no broad AWS credential sharing. The integration is secure, familiar to developers, and takes just minutes to configure for your repositories.

Use Cases of CloudBurn

Preventing Costly Developer Mistakes

A developer accidentally configures a database instance as db.r5.24xlarge instead of db.t3.medium. Without CloudBurn, this $10,000+/month mistake deploys silently and is caught on the next bill. With CloudBurn, a glaring cost alert appears in the PR comment during review, prompting an immediate fix before merge. This use case is fundamental for stopping simple typos and misconfigurations from becoming financial disasters.

Enabling Cost-Aware Architecture Decisions

During a feature development PR, a team debates using a cluster of t3.large instances versus a few c5.xlarge instances for a new workload. Instead of guessing or using spreadsheets, CloudBurn provides immediate cost projections for each option right in the discussion thread. This empowers teams to make informed, data-driven architectural choices that balance performance and cost from the very beginning.

Managing Infrastructure Scaling Events

A team needs to scale up their Kubernetes node group or add read replicas to handle anticipated traffic. When they open a PR to modify their Terraform or CDK code to add these resources, CloudBurn calculates and displays the full monthly impact of the scaling event. This provides stakeholders with clear financial approval context and ensures scaling decisions are made with full cost transparency.

Optimizing Existing Resources During Refactoring

When refactoring or cleaning up infrastructure, developers can see the cost savings of removing unused resources or downgrading over-provisioned ones directly in their PR. CloudBurn highlights the negative cost deltas (savings), turning infrastructure cleanup into a financially rewarding and visible activity, and helping to continuously right-size the environment.

Frequently Asked Questions

How does CloudBurn calculate the costs?

CloudBurn uses the official, real-time AWS Pricing API to fetch the most up-to-date prices for services in your specific region. It analyzes the output of terraform plan or cdk diff generated by the GitHub Action in your workflow. The tool maps each resource change in the plan to its corresponding AWS service and pricing model, then calculates the projected monthly cost based on 730 hours of usage (24/7 operation), providing a clear and standardized estimate for review.

Is my code or cloud configuration data secure?

Yes. Security is a primary design principle. CloudBurn is installed via GitHub Marketplace, using GitHub OAuth for permissions. Your code never leaves your GitHub repository. The tool only receives the textual output of your infrastructure plan/diff, which contains resource definitions but not secrets. It does not require or store your AWS credentials directly; all analysis is performed by CloudBurn's backend using public pricing data.

What infrastructure-as-code tools do you support?

CloudBurn currently provides dedicated support for the two most popular IaC frameworks: HashiCorp Terraform and AWS Cloud Development Kit (CDK). For each tool, there is a specific, easy-to-configure GitHub Action (Terraform Plan PR Commenter or AWS CDK Diff PR Commenter) that formats and sends the plan output for analysis.

Can I use CloudBurn for free?

Yes, CloudBurn offers a Community plan that is free to use forever. They also provide a 14-day trial of the Pro plan features, allowing you to experience advanced functionality at no cost. You can choose to subscribe to the Pro plan after the trial or continue using the Community plan. Installation and billing are handled transparently through the GitHub Marketplace.