What is Terraform?
Turkish: Terraform
Terraform is an Infrastructure as Code tool that manages cloud resources through HCL configuration, provider plugins, and state files.
What is Terraform?
Terraform lets teams define infrastructure components such as servers, databases, networks, DNS records, and Kubernetes resources in versioned configuration files instead of clicking through dashboards. Desired state is written in HashiCorp Configuration Language (HCL), then compared with the current state.
How Does It Work?
A typical Terraform workflow has three steps:
- Write: Resources, variables, and modules are defined in
.tffiles. - Plan: Terraform shows what will be created, changed, or destroyed.
- Apply: The approved plan is executed through provider APIs.
The state file tracks the current condition of managed resources. In teams, this state should be stored remotely with locking and access control.
What Is It Used For?
Terraform can work with AWS, Azure, Google Cloud, Cloudflare, and many SaaS providers. The same configuration model makes staging and production environments more repeatable. DevOps teams often connect Terraform to CI so infrastructure changes go through code review.
Ansible is usually stronger for configuring servers and running operational tasks, while Terraform focuses on creating and managing infrastructure resources. They can complement each other in the same project.
Related Terms
Ansible automates server setup, configuration management, and application deployment with YAML playbooks and no persistent agent.
DevOpsDevOps aligns software development and operations through shared processes, automation, metrics, and more reliable delivery.
Infrastructure as Code (IaC)Infrastructure as Code defines servers, networks, and cloud resources in versioned code files instead of manual console configuration.