Declarative, human-readable — and pure JSON works too.
- terraform plan previews · terraform apply creates · terraform destroy removes.
The .tfstate file maps code to real-world resources. Store it remotely.
- Depending on what you manage, it can contain plaintext sensitive values — credentials, tokens, secrets.
- Handle it with care. Don't feed it to your LLM.
.tfstate file maps code to real-world resourcesHandle it with care. Don't feed it to your LLM.
1000+ providers: AWS, GCP, Azure, Cloudflare, GitHub, Kubernetes…
- Not just cloud — manage GitHub teams, Datadog monitors, PagerDuty schedules, DNS records.
- If it has an API, there's a Terraform provider for it.
If it has an API, there's a Terraform provider for it.
BSL instead of MPL — no longer truly open-source.
- The community responded: OpenTofu, by the OpenTF Foundation, is the open-source fork.
- Drop-in replacement. Fully compatible. Community-driven.
Drop-in replacement. Fully compatible. Community-driven.
YAML playbooks run tasks in order, across any number of hosts.
- No daemon. No certificate authority. Just Python + SSH.
- Idempotent modules ensure the same playbook can run safely again and again.
Patch 200 servers tonight. Roll out a kernel upgrade with a canary strategy. Run a compliance audit across your whole fleet.
- Ansible is the tool you reach for when you need to do something — once, or every week.
Ansible is the tool you reach for when you need to do something — once, or every week.
Ansible Galaxy — 10,000+ ready-made roles and collections.
- Don't write a playbook to install Docker from scratch. Someone already did.
- Just ansible-galaxy install geerlingguy.docker.
Just ansible-galaxy install geerlingguy.docker.
Every 30 minutes, each puppet-agent polls the Puppet Server, compiles a catalog, and enforces it.
- Drift is corrected automatically — without anyone lifting a finger.
puppet-agent polls the Puppet ServerDrift is corrected automatically — without anyone lifting a finger.
Puppet noticed. Puppet fixed it.
- Continuous compliance — not just at deploy time. Every. 30. Minutes.
- No more gardening your servers by hand.
Continuous compliance, auditability, and guaranteed state — at scale.
- Best suited for enterprises with hundreds or thousands of long-lived servers.
- Fewer friendly SaaS options than Terraform or Ansible.
- Puppet Enterprise and Foreman are self-hosted. No managed cloud offering.
Puppet Enterprise and Foreman are self-hosted. No managed cloud offering.
Vox Pupuli — 100+ open-source Puppet modules, community-maintained.
- OpenVox — an emerging open-source fork of the Puppet core.
- The community is strong, with or without Puppet Inc.
The community is strong, with or without Puppet Inc.