About Terraform
Terraform made cloud infrastructure reviewable: declare resources in HCL, plan the diff, apply, and your AWS, Azure, and GCP estate lives in version control. Thousands of providers cover nearly every API. The 2023 BSL license change spawned the OpenTofu fork and IBM later acquired HashiCorp, yet Terraform remains the enterprise default with state management its crown jewel.
Key Features
- Declarative HCL configuration
- Execution plans and drift detection
- 3,000+ providers
- Remote state and locking
- Module registry
Pros & Cons
Pros
- Multi-cloud from one language
- Plan shows changes before apply
- Massive provider ecosystem
- State enables safe collaboration
Cons
- License change fractured community
- State management has sharp edges
- HCL quirks at complexity
Frequently Asked Questions
Is Terraform still open source?
It moved to the BSL license in 2023; OpenTofu continues as the open-source fork.
Terraform or Pulumi?
Pulumi offers real programming languages; Terraform offers ubiquity and ecosystem depth.
Reviews
Similar Software
Best For
Platform teams managing cloud infrastructure as reviewed, versioned code.