HashiCorp Terraform Reviews

A primary use case of Terraform is for deploying a VM on a cloud using Terraform script. If I then want to deploy a third-party toolset, a solution such as Aviatrix can create an overlay on top of each of the cloud providers and you can connect the clouds together. I'm a solutions architect and we are customers of HashiCorp. 

The solution has made a huge difference to us because the automation it provides has given us improved cost efficiency, security and saved many man-hours. It's created once and then that's pretty much it. When you next want to deploy something, you run it and it deploys. 

Terraform removes the manual process; you run it for a specific purpose, destroy it when you're done, and it removes all the associated components. The other good feature is that Terraform is idempotent; if something is already out there, it's not going to try to duplicate another installation of that environment.

One of the other major features of terraform is in its ability to act as a Disaster Recovery tool. Since terraform is an Infrastructure-As-A-Service tool, it can be used as part of the rest of the DR toolset to restore affected infrastructure to its original state without any variation. 

The Terraform manifests can be stored in a version control repository separate from the application code base and can be a single source of truth for an organization's infrastructure. The automation and the efficiency that Terraform brings to the SDLC lifecycle adds to the overall integrity of the infrastructure and provides a value added to the DevSecOps workflow.   

I've noticed that although Terraform is very good at deploying, it lacks in running script. For example, if you wanted to run multiple deployments such as a VM, and then install different softwares and create a full-blown infrastructure within that virtual machine, Terraform would probably lack certain features. I don't think it's very robust in running scripts or going from one sequence to another. You're likely to end up running a huge Terraform code base, where you'd probably get lost in terms of knowing where things are coming from and where they're going. 

I've been using this solution for two years. 

The solution is stable without too many bugs. If we're deploying on top of a current deployment, there can be some issues and that could be improved. If you need a fully idempotent solution, you deploy your infrastructure without touching any existing infrastructure. Unfortunately, Terraform fails when it finds an existing infrastructure and things become complicated. In terms of stability, this is probably one of the biggest deficiencies of Terraform. 

HashiCorp provides very good documentation so we haven't needed to contact technical support. They also have GitHub repository against each of those tutorials, so we can actually clone and tweak those according to our needs. There's also a large open-source community out there and a lot of blogs that complement the documentation. 

Deployment is just about downloading the plug-in. To run it requires each of the cloud environments on the CLI tool downloaded so that they both work together with all the credentials in place so that it can connect to each of the clouds. We are a small organization and still experimenting with Terraform so we only have one dedicated person helping out with the solution. That said, all of the team members are more or less skilled with Terraform.

We're definitely seeing cost savings from a man-hour point of view but I can't quantify it. 

We are using the free version of Terraform. Terraform Cloud has some kind of pricing and enterprise-level model which we haven't moved to yet. I think  Terraform has a pretty reasonable pricing structure. It allows the open-source community to use it as they please, so I'm pretty happy about it.

AWS has a code solution called CloudFormation which I think is a little slower than Terraform although I think CloudFormation is probably a bit more secure and foolproof.

This is a solid product and one of the leaders in this space. Terraform is used across the board as an Infrastructure-as-Code solution. 

There could be some improvements so I rate this solution eight out of 10. 

I use the solution to provision cloud resources on Azure, AWS, and GCP platforms.

What I like best is how easy the tool is to use. The HashiCorp Terraform language syntax is simple to learn. The Terraform.io registry feature is very useful - we can refer to our code and use pre-created modules posted there.

One area for improvement is real-time syncing with the actual infrastructure. Currently, you have to run CLI commands to sync the state file.

I have been using the product for two years. 

I rate the tool an eight out of ten. Sometimes, it can break down when handling too many resource creations at once due to dependency issues. 

I've contacted the support team a few times when getting errors.

Positive

The initial setup and deployment are also easy, especially when using the tool's code to deploy to cloud platforms.

The tool is worth the money. 

While it's easy to learn, you need experience with the HashiCorp Terraform language syntax to use it. I rate the overall solution an eight out of ten. 

We use the solution for three things. Firstly, to automate the infrastructure, like enabling Logpush to Datadog. Secondly, for Cloudflare AWS and Insight AWS. Thirdly, we use Terraform to create infrastructure.

It is one of the best things because now we have everything automated with Terraform. We didn't have an outage for the last three years because everything is written in a code, and every change we have made is recorded. If we didn't have a tool like Terraform, it would be extremely complex to achieve this level of maturity with infrastructure.

The state file is the most valuable feature because it helps one know what exactly one has.

The solution is complex when we use it for a loop. This is a problem, not because of the language itself, but because of how the infrastructure generally works. It's different from Python.

I have been using the solution for three and a half years.

It is a stable solution. I rate it nine out of ten.

The solution is not very scalable. I rate it six out of ten.

The initial setup is complex.

We have seen ROI with the tool's use. 

I plan to use the solution more in the future. I recommend people to use it as it is the best tool in the market at the moment to create infrastructure anywhere.

I rate it ten out of ten.

We use it to deploy resources on AWS.

It's very easy to automate functions on the cloud with HashiCorp Terraform. The commands are easy as well.

The syntax is a bit difficult, and it would great if it could be easier.

I've been using HashiCorp Terraform for four and a half years.

HashiCorp Terraform is a stable solution. We have 15 people who use it in our organization.

The initial setup is straightforward and easy.

There are free and paid versions of the solution. We use the free version.

I would recommend HashiCorp Terraform and rate it at eight out of ten. I like that there is a free version of the product, but the coding could be easier.

HashiCorp Terraform does a good job and helps us set up all operations.

There are no specific valuable features as the whole product is good.

Terraform doesn't support Artifactory as a backend.

We have used this solution for about four years and are using the latest version.

It is a stable solution.

I am unsure about the scalability.

We have never used their technical support.

We have not used any other solutions.

I rate the solution a ten out of ten. HashiCorp Terraform is a rapid and promising tool.

I use this solution for infrastructure for my projects that are deployed in Google Cloud. I work in EPA systems. 

The solution allows you to have infrastructure-like code which is basically what Terraform has been about. Terraform makes it easier to figure out the kind of problem that has occurred, why, and who was responsible.

Although using an older version, I've found the biggest advantage of Terraform is that it can be used across multiple cloud providers and multiple platforms and it has a simple API. 

The biggest disadvantage of Terraform is its lack of flexibility in common programming languages. It also lacks flexibility in creating some functions like complex expressions to declare random variables, and features that require any programming language. Those issues are because HashiCorp is trying to keep the API as simple as possible. I would like to see some idea of functional programming in Terraform. It would be great if you could process your data and push it back to the model. It would mean a huge improvement in flexibility. 

I've been using this solution for three years. 

The solution is stable and we haven't had any problems in that regard. 

The solution is scalable and we are constantly working on increasing of size of our infrastructure.

The initial setup is a little complex but not very difficult. Implementation time depends on the size of the deployment. Our deployment was carried out in-house. We need at least one person per 50 models of Terraform for implementation. 

We've had a return on our investment because it's decreased the overall ops overhead via the front team.

I am not using a payable Terraform although I'm quite familiar with the price and don't consider it to be expensive. Licensing costs are mid-range. 

I would suggest reading documentation and experimenting with the solution. 

I rate the solution 10 out of 10. 

We use HashiCorp Terraform to set up AWS infrastructure, and sometimes Cloudflare.

It is not exactly a tool for configuration, it is for setting up the development of the infrastructure.

The concept of infrastructure as code is quite intriguing.

We have an infrastructure in our code and a state file where we can verify whether something is changed when it was changed, and who changed it. When we use Terraform, these kinds of things fascinate us.

I often wonder why they don't create a UI. That is something I always consider. I realize CLI is useful, but I prefer to do things in this manner. Why are we opting for CLI? I want to make things easy. I understand that most don't agree with me, but that is what I would prefer.

I don't think that they will agree on this. I am looking for a drag-and-drop or anything that can just generate modules behind the scenes and allow people to quickly accomplish things. 

I am aware that it does not serve the purpose of Terraform, and that too, is an issue. 

We have a purpose for infrastructure as code, and when the code is gone, you are working on UI. Terraform is not a programming language, most things are straightforward; we cannot do. Terraform lacks these features.

I would say the programming language, perhaps using more of a programming language rather than this declarative language, is something I'd want to explore in the future.

I would want to see more programmatic capabilities implemented, such as if, else, and simple to manage things in terms of how I can use some programming functions to assist us to achieve more.

I would like to have programming language-relevant features, to have programming language be the primary way.

I have been using HashiCorp Terraform for three years.

I don't think HashiCorp Terraform is particularly stable. I would rate it a three and a half out of five. However, we are always working on it and making improvements. They had a lot of problems in the past, but today most things are done correctly.

While there are new versions coming in, there are always issues that arise.

It is not about stability, but about version upgrades. They have newer versions and occasionally backward compatibility. It happened a long time ago but is not an issue anymore. I had a bad experience at the beginning, which is why I remember it.

Someone who is just starting, in my opinion, will encounter difficulties. That is why I believe the language should be changed to a programmed language that everyone can comprehend.

The previous version had several difficulties with the state file, including some backward compatibility and parameter changes, but they are now more stable.

I have not encountered any issues with HashiCorp Terraform's scalability.

We are using Terraform to build up infrastructure in order to document our infrastructure more declaratively. That is what Terraform excels at. I never had any problems with scalability, either in terms of improvement or anything else. 

There are some glitches with Terraform servers. When we are initializing, we occasionally encounter an issue; in three years, this has happened to me twice.

We have 20 people in our organization who use this solution, if we add developers we have approximately 60 people.

From inside the cloud services, I am working on EKS Kubernetes, ECS Elastic Containerized Services, and Elasticsearch, which is now known as OpenSearch. I am working on EKS, Kubernetes, ECS, Elastic Containerized Services, as well as Elastic Search, which is now known as Open Search, and Redis ElastiCache, which is a component of MSK Kafka.

These are the tools I am using. Jenkins is used for the CI process, as well as GitHub Action is used for the CI process. 

As previously mentioned for alerts, we use Opsgenie and Grafana for the dashboards and premises. 

Many third-party services, such as NGINX, are used in Kubernetes. We use Cube Metrics for these kinds of activities, such as metrics scraping.

I have worked with Ansible as well, however, if you asked me to compare the two, I would say Terraform is superior to Ansible. I am not going to get into specifics. 

Terraform, is self-explanatory. It knows how to run, if we want to build some infrastructure, it understands where to start, how to start, what the dependencies are, and so on. 

We must occasionally inform Terraform of some dependencies, which is fine. Terraform, on the other hand, already understands the sequence in which it must execute certain infrastructure to build up. Those are the advantages over Ansible.

The disadvantage of Terraform is that, once again, we must use functions to build up variables or something similar, but Terraform's dry notion is not very good.

When I say dry, I mean that you should not repeat the bad code. Other references are being used to handle this. That is something I would want to suggest.

The initial setup is simple. It is not a difficult process to set up.

I would rate the initial setup a four out of five. it is easy.

When a new version is released, it is backward compatible. And I would say that is good in terms of Terraform maintainability. Normally, we don't have to make many changes, and backward compatibility is beneficial.

In terms of maintenance, it does not require a lot of attention.

It's good, I would rate HashiCorp Terraform an eight out of ten.

We use HashiCorp Terraform to deploy applications and infrastructures.

The most valuable aspect of this solution is the coding of our infrastructure. You can code it once and run it multiple times.

It works great for us.

We have had no issues integrating with other products.

It does everything we need it to do.

There is always room for improvement somewhere. I don't know everything about the product.

I read about the improvements and the different things that are coming out all of the time. They continue to maintain it.

I have been working with HashiCorp Terraform for two years.

HashiCorp Terraform is very stable. Once you have coded it, it is good.

The HashiCorp Terraform solution is scalable.

I have not contacted technical support. I have not needed it.

The initial setup was straightforward.

It is very simple to maintain.

I am not aware of the cost, my customer deals with that.

I would suggest going for it. I have not had any issue with it yet.

I would rate HashiCorp Terraform a nine out of ten.