Software Alternatives, Accelerators & Startups

Scalr VS Terraform

Compare Scalr VS Terraform and see what are their differences

Scalr logo Scalr

Scalr is cloud management software for public & private infrastructure

Terraform logo Terraform

Tool for building, changing, and versioning infrastructure safely and efficiently.
  • Scalr Landing page
    Landing page //
    2022-08-03
  • Terraform Landing page
    Landing page //
    2023-09-24

Scalr features and specs

  • Cost Management
    Scalr provides robust cost-management features, enabling organizations to track, optimize, and reduce their cloud expenditure efficiently.
  • Policy-Driven Automation
    It offers policy-driven automation which helps enforce governance and compliance across cloud environments, ensuring consistency and security.
  • Multi-Cloud Support
    Scalr supports multiple cloud providers, allowing organizations to manage diverse cloud infrastructures through a unified platform.
  • Scalability
    The platform is designed to scale with the organization, supporting the growth and changing needs of businesses.
  • Self-Service Portal
    Provides end-users with a self-service portal to access resources quickly, streamlining operations and boosting productivity.

Possible disadvantages of Scalr

  • Complexity
    The extensive features and customization options can introduce complexity, potentially lengthening the learning curve for new users.
  • Cost
    While it helps manage cloud costs, the pricing for Scalr itself might be a concern for small organizations with limited budgets.
  • Integration Challenges
    Integrating Scalr with existing IT systems and processes might require additional time and resources, especially for legacy setups.
  • Limited Offline Support
    Certain functionalities might be less effective in environments with limited internet connectivity, impacting remote or offline operations.
  • Vendor Dependence
    Organizations relying heavily on Scalr for cloud management may face challenges if needing to switch vendors or platforms in the future.

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.

Scalr videos

scalr review

More videos:

  • Demo - Get Started with the Scalr Basics
  • Demo - Terraform Reports in Scalr

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 Scalr and Terraform)
Developer Tools
17 17%
83% 83
DevOps Tools
7 7%
93% 93
Infrastructure As Code
100 100%
0% 0
Cloud Computing
21 21%
79% 79

User comments

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Reviews

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

Scalr Reviews

We have no reviews of Scalr yet.
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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 should be more popular than Scalr. 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.

Scalr mentions (4)

  • A list of SaaS, PaaS and IaaS offerings that have free tiers of interest to devops and infradev
    Scalr.com - Scalr is a Terraform Automation and COllaboration (TACO) product used to better collaboration and automation on infrastructure and configurations managed by Terraform. Full Terraform CLI support, OPA integration, and a hierarchical configuration model. No SSO tax. All features are included. Use up to 50 runs/month for free. - Source: dev.to / about 1 year ago
  • Monthly 'Shameless Self Promotion' thread - 2022/01
    Scalr is a tool that was created to give the Terraform community an affordable alternative to Terraform Cloud/Enterprise. Scalr is the only product in the space that has a hierarchical model to allow for object inheritance/sharing from a top-down perspective, cross-environment/workspace visibility, and custom RBAC to accommodate any complex org standards. Scalr can operate in a centralized or decentralized way... Source: over 3 years ago
  • Free for dev - list of software (SaaS, PaaS, IaaS, etc.)
    Scalr.com - Remote state & operations backend for Terraform with full CLI support, integration with OPA and a hierarchical configuration model. Free up to 5 users. - Source: dev.to / almost 4 years ago
  • How to continuously apply TF code?
    Actually, the "TACoS" term was coined by Sebastian, CTO of Scalr. Source: almost 4 years ago

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
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What are some alternatives?

When comparing Scalr and Terraform, you can also consider the following products

Spacelift.io - Collaborative Infrastructure For Modern Software Teams

Rancher - Open Source Platform for Running a Private Container Service

Morpheus - Morpheus is integration software designed to help major cloud infrastructure work in harmony. For example, if a company has assets on both Google's and Amazon's cloud services, Morpheus helps bridge the gap to improve productivity.

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

env0 - The Best Way to Manage Your Terraform and Infrastructure as Code Manage, deploy, scale, and control all your Terraform, Terragrunt, Pulumi, and related frameworks

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