Software Alternatives, Accelerators & Startups
Register | Login

Rancher VS Terraform

Compare Rancher VS Terraform and see what are their differences

IsDown.app
Monitor all your cloud services with our status page aggregator. IT teams choose IsDown to monitor all their vendors and get alerts whenever an outage occurs. Integration with Datadog, PagerDuty, Slack, Microsoft Teams, and a lot more. featured
Contents:
  1. » Base Details
  2. » Videos
  3. » Reviews
  4. » Alternatives

Rancher logo Rancher

Open Source Platform for Running a Private Container Service

Terraform logo Terraform

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

Rancher features and specs

  • Ease of Use
    Rancher provides an intuitive interface for managing Kubernetes clusters, making it accessible for both seasoned DevOps professionals and those new to container orchestration.
  • Multi-Cluster Management
    Rancher simplifies the management of multiple Kubernetes clusters, whether they are on-premise, in the cloud, or a combination of both, from a single dashboard.
  • Comprehensive Monitoring
    Rancher includes built-in monitoring and alerting features using Prometheus and Grafana, providing robust insights into cluster health and performance.
  • Security and Access Control
    Rancher offers detailed Role-Based Access Control (RBAC) policies to ensure that users have appropriate permissions, enhancing security and compliance.
  • Integrated CI/CD Pipelines
    Rancher integrates seamlessly with popular CI/CD tools, streamlining the development and deployment process across multiple environments.
  • Scalability
    Rancher is designed to easily scale with your needs, supporting a large number of clusters and nodes efficiently.
  • Open-Source
    Rancher is an open-source project, which means it is free to use and benefit from community contributions and transparency.

Possible disadvantages of Rancher

  • Complex Initial Setup
    While Rancher simplifies ongoing management, the initial setup and configuration can be complex and time-consuming for newcomers.
  • Resource Intensive
    Running Rancher can be resource-intensive, requiring substantial CPU and memory, which might be a concern for smaller environments or budgets.
  • Potential Overhead
    Introducing Rancher adds an additional layer between the user and the Kubernetes clusters, potentially introducing latency and an extra point of failure.
  • Learning Curve
    Despite its user-friendly interface, Rancher encompasses a wide array of features that require time and effort to learn and utilize fully.
  • Limited Vendor Support
    Some cloud providers have more robust support and native tools for their Kubernetes services, which might make Rancher less appealing if tight integration with a specific provider's ecosystem is required.

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.

Rancher videos

+ Add

Slime Rancher Review - Worthabuy?

More videos:

  • Review - 2019 Honda Rancher 420 Review Long term 1000 plus KM
  • Review - TEST RIDE: 2015 Honda Rancher 420

Terraform videos

+ Add

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 Rancher and Terraform)

Rancher

Terraform

DevOps Tools
55 55%
DevOps Tools
45% 45
Developer Tools
66 66%
Developer Tools
34% 34
Cloud Computing
62 62%
Cloud Computing
38% 38
Continuous Integration And Delivery
49 49%
Continuous Integration And Delivery
51% 51

User comments

Share your experience with using Rancher 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 Rancher and Terraform

Rancher Reviews

Kubernetes Alternatives 2023: Top 8 Container Orchestration Tools
Rancher is an open-source container orchestration platform. With it, you can manage production containers across different platforms, including on-premises and the public cloud. As a Platform as a Service, it simplifies container management by allowing access to a set of available open source technologies, rather than having to build platforms from scratch.
Source: www.servertribe.com
Top 12 Kubernetes Alternatives to Choose From in 2023
Rancher also offers integration with popular container runtimes and networking solutions, making it an excellent choice for teams seeking a comprehensive PaaS solution for their Kubernetes deployments.
Source: humalect.com
11 Best Rancher Alternatives Multi Cluster Orchestration Platform
Create a Kubernetes cluster, then link it to Rancher to use Rancher with Kubernetes. Rancher offers a web-based dashboard, an API, tools for deploying and scaling containerized apps and services, and resources for managing and monitoring your cluster.
Source: technicalustad.com
Docker Alternatives
An open-source code, Rancher is another one among the list of Docker alternatives that is built to provide organizations with everything they need. This software combines the environments required to adopt and run containers in production. A rancher is built on Kubernetes. This tool helps the DevOps team by making it easier to testing, deploying and managing the...
Source: www.educba.com
Heroku vs self-hosted PaaS
All in all I’m intrigued by Rancher but since I am looking for something simple then it is too advanced and resource intensive for my small side projects. I will however look into Rancher a bit more later and try to deploy one of my projects to it. That will probably be a blog post in it’s own!
Source: www.mskog.com

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.
Source: gswallow.medium.com
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.
Source: www.servertribe.com
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.
Source: www.cloudzero.com
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...
Source: blog.gruntwork.io
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%.
Source: www.techrepublic.com

Social recommendations and mentions

Terraform might be a bit more popular than Rancher. We know about 32 links to it since March 2021 and only 24 links to Rancher. 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.

Rancher mentions (24)

  • Terraform code for kubernetes on vsphere?
    I don't know in which extend you plan to use Kubernetes in the future, but if it is aimed to become several huge production clusters, you should looks into Apps like Rancher: https://rancher.com. Source: over 2 years ago
  • I want to provide some free support for community, how should I start?
    But I think once you have a good understanding of K8S internal (components, how thing work underlying, etc.), you can use some tool to help you provision / maintain k8s cluster easier (look for https://rancher.com/ and alternatives). Source: over 2 years ago
  • Don't Use Kubernetes, Yet
    A few years, I would have said no. Now, I'm cautiously optimistic about it. Personally, I think that you can use something like Rancher (https://rancher.com/) or Portainer (https://www.portainer.io/) for easier management and/or dashboard functionality, to make the learning curve a bit more approachable. For example, you can create a deployment through the UI by following a wizard that also offers you... - Source: Hacker News / almost 3 years ago
  • Building an Internal Kubernetes Platform
    Alternatively, it is also possible to use a multi-cloud or hybrid-cloud approach, which combines several cloud providers or even public and private clouds. Special tools such as Rancher and OpenShift can be very useful to run this type of system. - Source: dev.to / almost 3 years ago
  • Five Dex Alternatives for Kubernetes Authentication
    Rancher provides a Rancher authentication proxy that allows user authentication from a central location. With this proxy, you can set the credential for authenticating users that want to access your Kubernetes clusters. You can create, view, update, or delete users through Rancher’s UI and API. - Source: dev.to / almost 3 years ago
View more

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 Rancher and Terraform, you can also consider the following products

Kubernetes - Kubernetes is an open source orchestration system for Docker containers

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.

Ansible - Radically simple configuration-management, application deployment, task-execution, and multi-node orchestration engine

Docker - Docker is an open platform that enables developers and system administrators to create distributed applications.

RunDeck - RunDeck is an open source automation service with a web console, command line tools and a WebAPI.

Loading...