6 Reasons Why YAML Still Dominates Infrastructure as Code
“The good thing about standards is there are so many to choose from.”
That quote from Andrew Tanenbaum hits a little too close to home for DevOps teams. When you’re managing infrastructure as code, it feels like every tool speaks its own language. HCL. JSON. TOML. And then there’s the one that quietly outlasted them all.
YAML, short for YAML Ain’t Markup Language, was never meant to take over cloud configuration. It showed up in the early 2000s as a cleaner, more human-friendly way to structure data. But somewhere along the way, it became the go-to format for defining infrastructure.
As infrastructure as code became the foundation of modern cloud delivery, YAML kept showing up in all the right places.
What’s the proof?
According to the Linux Foundation’s Cloud Native 2024 report, 93% of organizations now use or evaluate Kubernetes, and nearly every resource inside Kubernetes is written in YAML. It’s simple, declarative, and supported across every major IaC tool out there. That’s how it quietly became the default language of automation.
This blog breaks down the 6 real reasons YAML is still winning and overpowering IaC, even as newer options keep showing up.
1. Readable YAML Syntax
YAML syntax is built to be human-first. Unlike JSON or HCL, it avoids punctuation clutter, making it easier to scan and modify, especially during troubleshooting. That makes a huge difference when engineers are moving fast under pressure.
In large-scale infrastructure-as-code projects, readability has utmost importance. As YAML follows indentation rather than braces or brackets, it reduces visual noise and helps teams quickly identify structure. That clarity becomes a real asset when debugging in high-pressure CI/CD pipelines.
2. Strong Tooling Support
YAML is practically everywhere. Tools like Ansible, Kubernetes, Helm, GitHub Actions, and even CircleCI rely on YAML as the default configuration format. It’s the one format that seems to work out-of-the-box across the DevOps chain.
That broad support reduces friction. Teams don’t need to relearn YAML syntax when switching between tools. They can reuse logic across tools without rewriting core configurations. YAML keeps workflows consistent and lowers onboarding time for anyone joining a new DevOps configuration stack.
3. Fits Declarative Infrastructure
YAML aligns perfectly with declarative infrastructure, where you define the desired end state and let the system figure out how to get there. That’s exactly how Kubernetes, Terraform, and Pulumi operate.
Instead of writing code that performs actions step-by-step, you describe what the environment should look like. YAML simplifies this model and keeps the logic transparent. It lets DevOps teams describe infrastructure clearly without overcomplicating intent.
4. Easy Version Control
One of the strengths of YAML is how easily it integrates with Git-based workflows. The structure makes pull request diffs easier to understand, speeding up code reviews.
It means fewer merge conflicts and less friction during collaboration. When your infrastructure as code lives alongside your app code, that simplicity matters. Teams can spot issues fast and fix them before they hit production.
5. Clean DevOps Configuration
YAML supports multi-document files, nested blocks, and advanced reuse features like anchors and aliases. This allows teams to build modular, DRY (Don’t Repeat Yourself) configs with far less manual duplication.
That’s the reason it’s considered ideal for managing DevOps configuration across environments without introducing drift or inconsistency. The cleaner the config, the less likely something breaks on deployment. And when things do go wrong, YAML makes it easier to track down what changed.
6. Standard Across IaC Workflows
YAML maintains consistency across the stack, from infrastructure provisioning with Terraform to deployment in Kubernetes. That makes handoffs smoother and config audits simpler.
Context-switching and onboarding have become way too easy. Engineers don’t waste time jumping between syntaxes; they focus on getting infrastructure right. This consistency creates fewer knowledge gaps between teams and fewer surprises in staging.
Conclusion
YAML didn’t win by being the flashiest or most feature-rich; it won by being clear, simple, and everywhere DevOps teams needed it. That consistency is hard to beat in complex, high-stakes environments.
Even when other formats offer more strictness or structure, YAML wins on practicality. It’s easy to read, easy to scale, and deeply embedded in the way infrastructure as code is written today. YAML may simplify configuration, but scaling it across cloud-native platforms like AWS still takes deep expertise and the right approach to DevOps configuration.
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