Pulumi is enticing because it allows you to write in your preferred language and abandon HCL, but it is strictly worse in my opinion. IaC should be declarative in my opinion. That allows for greater predictability, reproducibility and maintainability. In general, I think wanting to use Python or Ruby or whatever language you're going to use with Pulumi is not a good basis for choosing the tool.
There are many graveyards filled with places that tried to start writing logic into their IaC back in the Chef/Puppet era and made a huge mess that was impossible to upgrade or maintain (recall that Chef is more imperative/procedural, whereas in Puppet you describe the desired end state). The Chef/Pulumi approach can work, but it requires one person who is draconian about style and maintenance. Otherwise, it turns into a pile of garbage very quick.
Terraform/Puppet's model is a lot more maintainable for longer terms with bigger teams. It's just a better default for discouraging patterns that necessitate an outsized investment to maintain. Yes HCL can be annoying and it feels freeing to use Python/TS/whatever, but pure declarative code prevents a lot of spaghetti.
There are many graveyards filled with places that tried to start writing logic into their IaC back in the Chef/Puppet era and made a huge mess that was impossible to upgrade or maintain (recall that Chef is more imperative/procedural, whereas in Puppet you describe the desired end state). The Chef/Pulumi approach can work, but it requires one person who is draconian about style and maintenance. Otherwise, it turns into a pile of garbage very quick.
Terraform/Puppet's model is a lot more maintainable for longer terms with bigger teams. It's just a better default for discouraging patterns that necessitate an outsized investment to maintain. Yes HCL can be annoying and it feels freeing to use Python/TS/whatever, but pure declarative code prevents a lot of spaghetti.