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Terraform VS Docker Machine

Compare Terraform VS Docker Machine and see what are their differences

Terraform logo Terraform

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

Docker Machine logo Docker Machine

Machine management for a container-centric world
  • Terraform Landing page
    Landing page //
    2023-09-24
  • Docker Machine Landing page
    Landing page //
    2023-09-20

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.

Docker Machine features and specs

  • Cross-platform portability
    Docker Machine enables users to create and manage Docker hosts on local machines or cloud platforms, offering seamless cross-platform portability and integration across different environments.
  • Consistent environment setup
    Simplifies the process of setting up development environments, ensuring that configurations are consistent across various machines and reducing setup errors.
  • Integration with multiple drivers
    Supports various infrastructure providers like AWS, Azure, Google Cloud, VirtualBox, and more, allowing for flexibility in deploying and managing containers across different platforms.
  • Automated provisioning
    Automates the creation and provisioning of Docker hosts, reducing the manual steps and saving time for developers and system administrators.
  • Facilitates swarm creation
    Eases the creation and management of Docker Swarm clusters, simplifying orchestration and scaling of Docker containers.

Possible disadvantages of Docker Machine

  • No longer actively maintained
    Docker Machine is deprecated and no longer actively maintained, making it less reliable for production use and missing out on the latest updates and community support.
  • Complexity in management
    Managing multiple Docker Machines can become complex, especially in larger environments, requiring additional tools and scripts to handle configurations and updates efficiently.
  • Limited functionality
    Compared to other modern container orchestration tools, like Kubernetes, Docker Machine offers limited functionality in terms of orchestration and scaling capabilities.
  • Dependency on external tools
    Relies on external drivers and plugins which may introduce compatibility issues or require additional maintenance and troubleshooting efforts.
  • Resource overhead
    Running Docker Machine, especially on local environments like VirtualBox, can introduce additional resource overhead, potentially affecting the performance and speed of operations.

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!!!

Docker Machine videos

No Docker Machine videos yet. You could help us improve this page by suggesting one.

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Category Popularity

0-100% (relative to Terraform and Docker Machine)
DevOps Tools
94 94%
6% 6
Developer Tools
88 88%
12% 12
Continuous Integration And Delivery
Dev Ops
0 0%
100% 100

User comments

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Reviews

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

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%.

Docker Machine Reviews

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Social recommendations and mentions

Based on our record, Terraform seems to be a lot more popular than Docker Machine. While we know about 32 links to Terraform, we've tracked only 1 mention of Docker Machine. 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 / 10 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

Docker Machine mentions (1)

What are some alternatives?

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

Rancher - Open Source Platform for Running a Private Container Service

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

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

Docker Compose - Define and run multi-container applications with Docker

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