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    Overview
    ProductRatingMost Used ByProduct SummaryStarting Price

    IBM Terraform

    Score8.9 out of 10
    N/AIBM Terraform (formerly Hashicorp Terraform) is a cloud infrastructure automation tool used to create, change, and improve production infrastructure, and it allows infrastructure to be expressed as code. It is available Open Source, and via Cloud and Self-Hosted editions.

    $0

    Perforce Puppet

    Score8.5 out of 10
    N/APuppet Enteprise is an IT automation and configuration management solution that enables users to manage and automate infrastructure and complex workflows. The vendor states Puppet Enterprise combines both model‑based and task-based capabilities in a way that enables organizations to scale their multi-cloud infrastructure as their automation footprint grows, with more flexibility from both agent-based and agentless capabilities.N/A
    Pricing
    IBM TerraformPerforce Puppet
    Editions & Modules
    Open Source
    $0
    Team & Governance
    $20/user
    per user/per month
    Enterprise
    Contact sales team
    No answers on this topic
    Offerings
    Pricing Offerings
    IBM TerraformPerforce Puppet
    Free Trial
    NoNo
    Free/Freemium Version
    YesNo
    Premium Consulting/Integration Services
    NoNo
    Entry-level Setup FeeNo setup feeNo setup fee
    Additional Details——
    More Pricing Information
    Community Pulse
    IBM TerraformPerforce Puppet
    Considered Both Products
    IBM
    Chose IBM Terraform
    AWS CloudFormation is better if you just want to stick with AWS because it's integration with AWS is better, provides auto-rollback in case of failures, and has GUI to manage and view the stacks built. Terraform is better when we want to stay cloud-agnostic. Terraform is better …
    Incentivized
    Chose IBM Terraform
    - Terraform syntax is much easier to read and learn than Cloud Formation. - Terraform already supports AWS as well as several other cloud providers. - Terraform is backed by a great and supportive open-source community.
    Incentivized
    Perforce Software
    No answer on this topic
    Key User Insights
    Would buy again
    94%
    Would buy again
    49 Answers
    No answers on this topic
    Delivers good value for the price
    96%
    Delivers good value for the price
    44 Answers
    No answers on this topic
    Happy with the feature set
    96%
    Happy with the feature set
    50 Answers
    No answers on this topic
    Lived up to sales and marketing promises
    94%
    Lived up to sales and marketing promises
    31 Answers
    No answers on this topic
    Implementation went as expected
    93%
    Implementation went as expected
    42 Answers
    No answers on this topic
    Best Alternatives
    IBM TerraformPerforce Puppet
    Small Businesses
    HashiCorp Vagrant
    Score9 out of 10
    Salt
    Score6.2 out of 10
    Medium-sized Companies
    HashiCorp Vagrant
    Score9 out of 10
    Ansible
    Score9 out of 10
    Enterprises
    AWS CloudFormation
    Score8.2 out of 10
    Salt
    Score6.2 out of 10
    All AlternativesView all alternativesView all alternatives
    User Ratings
    IBM TerraformPerforce Puppet
    Likelihood to Recommend
    8.6
    (63 ratings)
    7.0
    (12 ratings)
    Likelihood to Renew
    9.0
    (2 ratings)
    -
    (0 ratings)
    Usability
    8.8
    (38 ratings)
    -
    (0 ratings)
    Performance
    9.4
    (3 ratings)
    -
    (0 ratings)
    Support Rating
    8.0
    (6 ratings)
    8.0
    (1 ratings)
    Implementation Rating
    8.0
    (1 ratings)
    -
    (0 ratings)
    Ease of integration
    9.2
    (3 ratings)
    -
    (0 ratings)
    User Testimonials
    IBM TerraformPerforce Puppet
    Likelihood to Recommend
    IBM
    IBM Terraform does a great job in managing cloud infra workloads. The problem statement is, as a organization we lack the ability to deploy repeatable infra across our cloud platform and we need that infra to be compliant, secure and easy to deploy. The second problem statement is to integrate your infra deployment into your software pipeline with some type of ci pipeline.
    Incentivized
    Read full review
    Perforce Software
    Puppet is good enough to get the job done, you can use it to automate deployments and maintain files and configurations, if this is all you're looking for it's great. If you're looking for more control over your systems as a whole without having to write your own scripts or install multiple configuration management systems then Puppet is not what you're looking for.
    Incentivized
    Read full review
    Pros
    IBM
    • Standardised templating - Great for repetitive tasks or processes. For example flattening JSON files into tables. We can make a Terraform template which can be duplicated and used for many different file schemas.
    • Dynamic/static variables - Getting information about the stage/instance Terraform is running in can help dynamically generate assets. E.g. making prod vs dev vs non-live assets based on the instance to Git branch.
    • Vast array of connectors - Terraform seems to connect with lots of different technologies, and are often maintained by the tech provider so you know it's going to be designed in the best way possible for that tech.
    Incentivized
    Read full review
    Perforce Software
    • Provides a clear map of how a system is configured
    • Eases the creation of a system in a specific cluster as it is scripted in code
    • Simplifies configuration changes to a cluster or to every system such as rolling out vhost configurations, updating ldap roles, NFS mounts, etc
    • The syntax is very easy to read and carries a lot of fluidity once the language is learned.
    Incentivized
    Read full review
    Cons
    IBM
    • The language itself is a bit unusual and this makes it hard for new users to get onboarded into the codebase. While it's improving with later releases, basic concepts like "map an array of options into a set of configurations" or "apply this logic if a variable is specified" are possible but unnecessarily cumbersome.
    • The 'Terraform Plan' operation could be substantially more sophisticated. There are many situations where a Terraform file could never work but successfully passes the 'plan' phase only to fail during the 'apply' phase.
    • Environment migrations could be smoother. Renaming/refactoring files is a challenge because of the need to use 'Terraform mv' commands, etc.
    Incentivized
    Read full review
    Perforce Software
    • The setup of Puppet is a nightmare compared to ansible. Anyone watching a youtube video can easily set up ansible with minimal IT knowledge. All one needs is the source IP addresses and we are good to go. Setting up Puppet is a more hands-on task and pushing the puppet agents to all the boxes is another issue. If the installation and setup were simplified like ansible that would attract a lot of people to this platform
    • The syntax of the code for Puppet is not as easy as ansible. Ansible simply follows a YAML format and it's like typing in normal English. Even complicated tasks can be written by just understanding YAML syntax. Perhaps Puppet needs to revisit the lanugage used and try to come up with a much simpler lanugage for writing code. This will make day-to-day usage easier.
    Incentivized
    Read full review
    Likelihood to Renew
    IBM
    Still the best provisioning tool out there and good support from the community as well in terms of shared knowledge
    Incentivized
    Read full review
    Perforce Software
    No answers on this topic
    Usability
    IBM
    We need to work with different products, and it can be a bit painful, but I see IBM's strategy as bringing the whole workflow together, like Ansible, Terraform, and so on, which is very useful. Now, I guess it is important to unify it in one place.
    Incentivized
    Read full review
    Perforce Software
    No answers on this topic
    Performance
    IBM
    Terraform's performance is quite amazing when it comes to deployment of resources in AWS. Of course, the deployment times depend on various parameters like the number of resources to deploy and different regions to deploy. Terraform cannot control that. The only minor drawback probably shows up when a terraform job is terminated mid way. Then in many cases, time-consuming manual cleanup is required.
    Incentivized
    Read full review
    Perforce Software
    No answers on this topic
    Support Rating
    IBM
    I have yet to have an opportunity to reach out directly to HashiCorp for support on Terraform. However, I have spent a great deal of time considering their documentation as I use the tool. This opinion is based solely on that. I find the Terraform documentation to have great breadth but lacking in depth in many areas. I appreciate that all of the tool's resources have an entry in the docs but often the examples are lacking. Often, the examples provided are very basic and prompt additional exploration. Also, the links in the documentation often link back to the same page where one might expect to be linked to a different source with additional information.
    Incentivized
    Read full review
    Perforce Software
    Puppet has top class support. You can simply mail them with their query and they will respond to your query in a timely manner. We do have enterprise license for puppet. Also there is a vibrant community for puppet out there. So even if you dont purchase a premium support option you can simply google your queries and get answers
    Incentivized
    Read full review
    Implementation Rating
    IBM
    Implementation is straight forward. Never had issues as the team is already very familiar with Terraform installation from previous projects and roles
    Incentivized
    Read full review
    Perforce Software
    No answers on this topic
    Alternatives Considered
    IBM
    AWS CloudFormation is better if you just want to stick with AWS because it's integration with AWS is better, provides auto-rollback in case of failures, and has GUI to manage and view the stacks built. Terraform is better when we want to stay cloud-agnostic. Terraform is better if we are using multiple cloud resources for our solution.
    Incentivized
    Read full review
    Perforce Software
    HPSA is a licensed product and incurs significant upfront investment costs due to COTS licensing. Puppet Data Center Automation has a significantly lower upfront investment and product documentation is more readily available. Chef is a very similar offering, however, at the time our decision was considered, the adoption of Chef vs. Puppet was significantly less in the community.
    Incentivized
    Read full review
    Return on Investment
    IBM
    • The entire mission-critical infrastructure is managed as code, with access control & version control.
    • Very trivial to setup daily job to compare actual infra vs code to detect & alert drifts.
    • Familiar to build & maintain means lower cost of ownership.
    Read full review
    Perforce Software
    • Cut deployment times down to around 1 hour from 4-5 hours.
    • Allows us to get a fully running system up from scratch in around 30 minutes.
    • Allows for a more clear view of what is required to get a host running.
    Incentivized
    Read full review
    ScreenShots

    IBM Terraform Screenshots

    Screenshot of Terraform StateScreenshot of Terraform RunsScreenshot of Terraform VariablesScreenshot of Terraform WorkspacesScreenshot of Terraform Cost Estimation