GitLab as an AWS Control Plane: Automating Hosting with OpenTofu and Argo CD
For teams running web hosting and Kubernetes workloads on AWS, manual infrastructure setup remains slow, inconsistent, and difficult to reproduce. A recent GitLab tutorial, based on a live demo from AWS Summit Madrid 2025 by Clober (SATEC group), showed a fully automated alternative. By using GitLab as the central operations brain, OpenTofu (the open-source Terraform fork) for infrastructure as code, and Argo CD for GitOps delivery, the workflow provisions a complete AWS environment and deploys a sample application without manual intervention. For hosting buyers, sysadmins, and European cloud operators, the approach promises reproducible environments, faster recovery, and tighter access controls. This article breaks down the architecture, the real operational tradeoffs, and what you should verify before adopting GitLab as your AWS control plane. Why a Single-Platform Control Plane Matters for Hosting Operations Manual cloud configuration is error-prone because networking, subscripti...