What Is Terraform?
By Karthick Selvam · Published
Terraform is an infrastructure-as-code tool for defining and provisioning cloud and on-premises resources.
How it works
You describe resources in HCL configuration files; Terraform plans the changes and applies them through provider plugins.
State
Terraform tracks deployed resources in a state file, usually stored remotely with locking.
Benefits
Repeatable environments, code review for infrastructure and multi-cloud support.
Licensing note
HashiCorp changed Terraform's licence in 2023; OpenTofu is a community fork under an open-source licence.
Frequently asked questions
Terraform vs CloudFormation?
CloudFormation is AWS-only; Terraform works across many providers.
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