AWS CDK also works with Python. However, in my experience, TypeScript-based CDK projects are more productive to develop, due to all the built-in error checking and autocompletion features in Visual Studio Code. Node.js also provides a more coherent environment with the package.json structure, which defines all the scripts and dependencies etc. Python-based CDK projects seem to include more "custom hacks". Because of all this, I prefer to use TypeScript for CDK even if the actual application to deploy is based on Python.

Regardless of what language you use to write your cdk stacks, the cdk cli application which transpiles your cdk stacks into cloudformation requires nodejs. So in reality cdk requires nodejs — always — and then whatever language you are writing the stacks in as well. It becomes a pain in the ass when you have a python application which is defined in a python cdk stack, but you still need nodejs to transpile your python cdk stack into cloudformation.

My main gripe is that the cdk cli should be distributed as a standalone binary so I don’t need to install nodejs to deploy my project.

Ok thanks for clarifying. I guess we already have Node.js everywhere where CDK is used, so never noticed it. I can see it's uncomfortable when that is not the case.