• HashiCorp Developer

  • HashiCorp Cloud Platform
  • Terraform
  • Packer
  • Consul
  • Vault
  • Boundary
  • Nomad
  • Waypoint
  • Vagrant
Terraform
  • Install
  • Tutorials
    • About the Docs
    • Configuration Language
    • Terraform CLI
    • Terraform Cloud
    • Terraform Enterprise
    • CDK for Terraform
    • Provider Use
    • Plugin Development
    • Registry Publishing
    • Integration Program
  • Registry(opens in new tab)
  • Try Cloud(opens in new tab)
  • Sign up
Terraform Home

Intro

Skip to main content
  • Intro
  • Use Cases
  • Get Started
  • Terraform Editions
  • The Core Terraform Workflow
    • Overview
    • Chef, Puppet, etc.
    • CloudFormation, Heat, etc.
    • Boto, Fog, etc.
    • Custom Solutions

  • Resources

  • Tutorial Library
  • Certifications
  • Community Forum
    (opens in new tab)
  • Support
    (opens in new tab)
  • GitHub
    (opens in new tab)
  • Terraform Registry
    (opens in new tab)
  1. Developer
  2. Terraform
  3. Intro
  4. Terraform vs. Alternatives
  5. Chef, Puppet, etc.
  • Terraform
  • v1.2.x
  • v1.1 and earlier

ยปTerraform vs. Chef, Puppet, etc.

Configuration management tools install and manage software on a machine that already exists. Terraform is not a configuration management tool, and it allows existing tooling to focus on their strengths: bootstrapping and initializing resources.

Terraform focuses on the higher-level abstraction of the datacenter and associated services, while allowing you to use configuration management tools on individual systems. It also aims to bring the same benefits of codification of your system configuration to infrastructure management.

If you are using traditional configuration management within your compute instances, you can use Terraform to configure bootstrapping software like cloud-init to activate your configuration management software on first system boot.

Edit this page on GitHub
Give Feedback(opens in new tab)
  • Certifications
  • System Status
  • Terms of Use
  • Security
  • Privacy
  • Trademark Policy
  • Trade Controls
  • Give Feedback(opens in new tab)