Software Alternatives, Accelerators & Startups

Terraform VS BetterCloud

Compare Terraform VS BetterCloud and see what are their differences

Terraform logo Terraform

Tool for building, changing, and versioning infrastructure safely and efficiently.

BetterCloud logo BetterCloud

BetterCloud provides critical insights, automated management, and intelligent data security for cloud office platforms.
  • Terraform Landing page
    Landing page //
    2023-09-24
  • BetterCloud Landing page
    Landing page //
    2023-10-03

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.

BetterCloud features and specs

  • Comprehensive SaaS Management
    BetterCloud provides a wide array of tools for managing, securing, and automating various SaaS applications, helping organizations streamline their workflow and reduce administrative burden.
  • Automation and Integration
    The platform offers robust automation capabilities, allowing organizations to create custom workflows and automate repetitive tasks. Integrations with popular SaaS applications further enhance its efficiency.
  • User Friendly Interface
    BetterCloud boasts an intuitive and user-friendly interface, making it accessible even to those who may not be very tech-savvy.
  • Enhanced Security Features
    The platform incorporates strong security measures such as activity monitoring and threat detection, which help in protecting sensitive organizational data across various applications.
  • Centralized Control
    BetterCloud provides a centralized dashboard that allows IT admins to manage and monitor all connected SaaS applications from a single platform.

Possible disadvantages of BetterCloud

  • Complexity for Smaller Organizations
    While feature-rich, the extensive capabilities of BetterCloud might be overwhelming for smaller organizations that do not require such a comprehensive solution.
  • Cost
    BetterCloud can be quite expensive, especially for startups or small enterprises with limited budgets. The cost may outweigh benefits for some organizations.
  • Integration Limitations
    Although BetterCloud supports a wide range of SaaS applications, there might be limitations in integrations with niche or less-common applications, which could be a hurdle for some enterprises.
  • Learning Curve
    Despite having a user-friendly interface, the extensive functionalities may require a significant learning curve, especially for users unfamiliar with SaaS management tools.
  • Dependence on Stable Internet
    Being a cloud-based solution, BetterCloud's performance is highly dependent on a stable and reliable internet connection, which could be a limitation in areas with poor connectivity.

Analysis of Terraform

Overall verdict

  • Overall, Terraform is considered a robust and effective tool for infrastructure automation. It’s ideal for organizations seeking to streamline their deployment processes, ensure consistency across environments, and automate the lifecycle of their resources. Its flexibility and provider ecosystem make it a valuable asset for teams working in multi-cloud or hybrid environments.

Why this product is good

  • Terraform, developed by HashiCorp, is widely regarded as an excellent tool for infrastructure as code (IaC) due to its ability to provision and manage infrastructure across multiple cloud providers. It offers a consistent CLI workflow, and its HCL (HashiCorp Configuration Language) is powerful yet simple, allowing users to define complex infrastructure configurations in a human-readable format. Terraform’s state management, modules, and community support further contribute to its strengths, enabling efficient resource management and scalability.

Recommended for

    Terraform is particularly recommended for DevOps teams, infrastructure engineers, and IT professionals looking to implement infrastructure as code practices. It's also suitable for organizations aiming to adopt DevOps methodologies, enhance their cloud infrastructure management, or manage complex infrastructure at scale. Additionally, teams operating in multi-cloud environments or those looking to automate infrastructure changes can greatly benefit from using Terraform.

Analysis of BetterCloud

Overall verdict

  • Overall, BetterCloud is often regarded as a good choice for businesses looking to enhance their IT management capabilities within the SaaS environment. Its robust features and integrations make it a valuable tool for organizations of various sizes.

Why this product is good

  • BetterCloud is considered effective because it offers comprehensive SaaS management and security solutions. It helps IT teams automate workflows, manage user lifecycle events, and enforce compliance. The platform is noted for its ability to integrate with numerous applications, making it a versatile tool in streamlining SaaS operations.

Recommended for

  • IT administrators seeking to automate routine tasks
  • Companies managing multiple SaaS applications
  • Organizations aiming to enhance security and compliance
  • Businesses looking to improve visibility and control over user access

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!!!

BetterCloud videos

BetterCloud Product Overview

More videos:

  • Review - What Is BetterCloud?
  • Review - Suitebriar & BetterCloud Webinar: Manage & Secure Applications with BetterCloud

Category Popularity

0-100% (relative to Terraform and BetterCloud)
DevOps Tools
85 85%
15% 15
Monitoring Tools
0 0%
100% 100
Developer Tools
100 100%
0% 0
Continuous Integration And Delivery

User comments

Share your experience with using Terraform and BetterCloud. 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 Terraform and BetterCloud

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%.

BetterCloud Reviews

We have no reviews of BetterCloud yet.
Be the first one to post

Social recommendations and mentions

Based on our record, Terraform seems to be a lot more popular than BetterCloud. While we know about 32 links to Terraform, we've tracked only 3 mentions of BetterCloud. 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.

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 / 11 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 / almost 2 years 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

BetterCloud mentions (3)

  • Daily Chat Thread - September 03, 2022
    Also for my last employer, I contributed to their private repo by building a web app that can allow People team to orchestrate IT on/off boarding tasks similar to a tool like (BetterCloud) but built in house. Source: almost 3 years ago
  • Annoying problems to solve
    It's also called "SaaS management" or "software asset management" e.g. zylo.com bettercloud.com or blissfully.com. Source: over 3 years ago
  • Create Report of all gsuite settings !
    Many mid-to-large sized organizations use BetterCloud to manage their Google Workspaces. If you use many SaaS products, you can probably manage most of them through their platform. Source: over 3 years ago

What are some alternatives?

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

Rancher - Open Source Platform for Running a Private Container Service

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.

Red Hat OpenShift - Application and Data, Application Hosting, and Platform as a Service

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

HHVM - HHVM is an open-source virtual machine designed for executing programs written in Hack and PHP.