Software Alternatives, Accelerators & Startups

Ansible for DevOps VS Terraform

Compare Ansible for DevOps VS Terraform and see what are their differences

Ansible for DevOps logo Ansible for DevOps

Server and configuration management for humans

Terraform logo Terraform

Tool for building, changing, and versioning infrastructure safely and efficiently.
  • Ansible for DevOps Landing page
    Landing page //
    2023-07-04
  • Terraform Landing page
    Landing page //
    2023-09-24

Ansible for DevOps features and specs

  • Agentless Architecture
    Ansible operates without the need for additional agent software on remote machines, reducing overhead and simplifying management.
  • Ease of Use
    Ansible uses a simple, human-readable YAML syntax which makes it accessible for both developers and operations teams.
  • Scalability
    Ansible can handle complex deployments, making it suitable for managing a large number of servers efficiently.
  • Comprehensive Tooling
    Ansible provides a wide array of modules and plugins that support various systems and services, allowing broader automation capabilities.
  • Strong Community Support
    Ansible has a large and active community which facilitates sharing of roles and playbooks, accelerates problem-solving, and extends the platform's capabilities.

Possible disadvantages of Ansible for DevOps

  • Limited Windows Support
    Although Ansible has improved its support for Windows, it is historically more oriented towards Linux/Unix environments, potentially creating challenges in Windows-dominant settings.
  • Performance on Large Scale
    Running Ansible in very large environments with thousands of nodes can lead to performance issues due to its push-based model.
  • No GUI by Default
    Ansible primarily provides a command-line interface unless coupled with Ansible Tower (now AWX), which could limit usability for those who prefer graphical interfaces.
  • Learning Curve for Advanced Features
    Basic tasks in Ansible are straightforward, but leveraging more advanced features and custom modules may require a steeper learning curve.

Terraform features and specs

  • Infrastructure as Code
    Terraform allows you to define your infrastructure in configuration files that can be versioned and stored in a version control system. This makes it easy to track changes, roll back if necessary, and collaborate with team members.
  • Multi-Cloud Support
    Terraform supports various cloud providers such as AWS, Azure, Google Cloud, and others. This allows you to manage your entire infrastructure using a single tool, regardless of the underlying provider.
  • Immutability
    Terraform promotes immutable infrastructure, meaning once a component is created, it is not modified in place but replaced if changes are needed. This leads to more predictable and stable deployments.
  • State Management
    Terraform maintains the state of your infrastructure, which helps in tracking resource changes over time and making incremental updates. This is crucial for applying changes in a controlled manner.
  • Community and Ecosystem
    Terraform has a large and active community, along with a rich ecosystem of providers and modules. This makes it easier to find support, share solutions, and leverage pre-built components.

Possible disadvantages of Terraform

  • Complex State Management
    While state management is a significant feature, managing state files can become complex and risky. Issues like state file corruption or sharing between team members can lead to challenges.
  • Learning Curve
    Terraform has a steep learning curve for beginners, especially those who are not familiar with infrastructure as code concepts or the HashiCorp Configuration Language (HCL).
  • Partial Updates
    Terraform's plan and apply operations are not atomic, meaning that partial updates can sometimes leave your infrastructure in an inconsistent state if an error occurs during execution.
  • Dependency Management
    Managing dependencies between resources can be challenging in Terraform. Misconfigured dependencies can lead to issues during resource creation, deletion, or updates.
  • Cost Management
    While Terraform is excellent for provisioning resources, it does not have built-in cost management or optimization features. Users need to rely on third-party tools to manage and optimize costs.

Ansible for DevOps videos

No Ansible for DevOps videos yet. You could help us improve this page by suggesting one.

Add video

Terraform videos

Wampler Terraform | Reverb Tone Report Demo

More videos:

  • Review - MOD PEDAL POWERHOUSE! Wampler TERRAFORM
  • Demo - IT'S FINALLY HERE! | Wampler Terraform Demo | It's as good as you hoped!!!

Category Popularity

0-100% (relative to Ansible for DevOps and Terraform)
Developer Tools
10 10%
90% 90
DevOps Tools
5 5%
95% 95
Continuous Integration
100 100%
0% 0
Continuous Integration And Delivery

User comments

Share your experience with using Ansible for DevOps and Terraform. For example, how are they different and which one is better?
Log in or Post with

Reviews

These are some of the external sources and on-site user reviews we've used to compare Ansible for DevOps and Terraform

Ansible for DevOps Reviews

We have no reviews of Ansible for DevOps yet.
Be the first one to post

Terraform Reviews

Do not use AWS CloudFormation
Terraform, on the other hand, will occupy your shell until the directly-involved AWS service coughs up an error. No additional tooling is required. Terraform will just relay the error message from the affected service indicating what you’ve done wrong.
Top 5 Ansible Alternatives in 2022: Server Automation Solutions by Alexander Fashakin on the 19th Aug 2021 facebook Linked In Twitter
Although Terraform and Ansible are both server automation tools, there are still a few significant differences between the two. For example, Terraform is declarative while Ansible allows for both procedural configurations and declarative configurations. Also, Ansible works best as a configuration management tool while Terraform leans towards cloud orchestration.
35+ Of The Best CI/CD Tools: Organized By Category
Terraform is compatible with a wide range of Cloud providers, including Azure, VMWare, and AWS. If you’re subscribed to multiple cloud providers, Terraform is a great way to ensure that they have consistent configurations.
Why we use Terraform and not Chef, Puppet, Ansible, SaltStack, or CloudFormation
Example: Terraform and Ansible. You use Terraform to deploy all the underlying infrastructure, including the network topology (i.e., VPCs, subnets, route tables), data stores (e.g., MySQL, Redis), load balancers, and servers. You then use Ansible to deploy your apps on top of those servers.This is an easy approach to start with, as there is no extra infrastructure to run...
Ansible overtakes Chef and Puppet as the top cloud configuration management tool
Breaking these results down year-over-year, use of Ansible grew from 36% in 2018 to 41% in 2019--surpassing Chef, which grew from 36% to 37%, as well as Puppet, which grew from 34% to 37%. Rounding out the list is Terraform, which experienced a jump from 20% to 31%, and Salt, which increased in usage from 13% to 18%.

Social recommendations and mentions

Based on our record, Terraform seems to be more popular. It has been mentiond 32 times since March 2021. We are tracking product recommendations and mentions on various public social media platforms and blogs. They can help you identify which product is more popular and what people think of it.

Ansible for DevOps mentions (0)

We have not tracked any mentions of Ansible for DevOps yet. Tracking of Ansible for DevOps recommendations started around Mar 2021.

Terraform mentions (32)

  • Scaffolding Serverless Web Application on AWS
    Terraform is an infrastructure as code tool that lets you build, change, and version infrastructure safely and efficiently. Terraform code is in the terraform directory. - Source: dev.to / 9 months ago
  • Integrating Terraform with CI/CD Pipelines
    In recent years, there has been a significant shift towards automation of infrastructure deployment processes. One popular tool that has emerged as a key player in this space is Terraform, an open-source infrastructure as code (IaC) software tool developed by HashiCorp. This article will explore how Terraform can be integrated into continuous integration and delivery (CI/CD) pipelines using GitHub Actions as an... - Source: dev.to / about 1 year ago
  • Deploying Your Outdoor Activities Map with Terraform
    Terraform is an open-source infrastructure-as-code software tool created by HashiCorp. It allows you to define and manage your infrastructure as code, making it easy to provision and manage resources across multiple cloud providers. With Terraform, you can ensure consistent and repeatable deployments, making it an ideal choice for automating your cloud infrastructure. - Source: dev.to / over 1 year ago
  • Trigger CI using Terraform Cloud
    Continuous Integration(CI) pipelines needs a target infrastructure to which the CI artifacts are deployed. The deployments are handled by CI or we can leverage Continuous Deployment pipelines. Modern day architecture uses automation tools like terraform, ansible to provision the target infrastructure, this type of provisioning is called IaaC. - Source: dev.to / about 2 years ago
  • Using Let's Encrypt with the Puppet Enterprise console
    Had an itch I've been meaning to scratch for a while. I build my Puppet environment using Terraform, which makes it nice and easy to tear things down and rebuild them. That is great, but it does leave me with an issue when it comes to the console SSL certificates. - Source: dev.to / about 2 years ago
View more

What are some alternatives?

When comparing Ansible for DevOps and Terraform, you can also consider the following products

The DevOps 2.0 Toolkit - Automating the continuous deployment pipeline

Rancher - Open Source Platform for Running a Private Container Service

ScrapeOwl - Simple and powerful web scraping API

Puppet Enterprise - Get started with Puppet Enterprise, or upgrade or expand.

Packer - Packer is an open-source software for creating identical machine images from a single source configuration.

Bamboo - Bamboo is a continuous integration and deployment tool that ties automated builds, tests and releases together in a single workflow.