Below are some of the alternatives available in market for terraform.
- AWS CloudFormation
- AWS CDK
- Pulumi
- Azure ARM
- Google deployment manager
- CDKtf
- Microsoft Bicep
- Ansible
- Crossplane
- OpenTofu
1. AWS CloudFormation
AWS offers a solution called CloudFormation that makes cloud resource management more automated, dependable, consistent, and predictable. AWS CloudFormation is a service offered by AWS, as its name implies, and is thus used for AWS infrastructure design, deployment, and management.
YAML or JSON syntax is used in CloudFormation templates to design infrastructure. With this style, which is highly familiar and easy to use, you can rapidly begin using CloudFormation templates. However, it is not simple to define the infrastructure in CloudFormation templates from scratch due to the large number of services and associated properties.
The CloudFormation Designer is useful in this situation. An editor called CloudFormation Designer assists you in creating CloudFormation templates from scratch. Developers can pick the components they need in their architecture and set various properties connected to it using the straightforward drag-and-drop interface, which helps them create their infrastructure requirements. The template's output is shown simultaneously on the same screen by the CloudFormation designer.
2. AWS CDK
AWS CDK is the best option if we want to develop the IaC using well-known programming languages and deploy cloud apps on AWS. By using AWS CDK, you can take advantage of CloudFormation Templates and develop IaC on AWS using the same IDE.
AWS CDK uses Constructs, which provide infrastructure components with tested defaults and adaptability to modify them, are used by the Amazon CDK. Several AWS services have constructs available from the AWS Constructs library, which aid in managing interconnection and wrapping up complexity.
3. Pulumi
The ability to use familiar programming languages is one of the main benefits of adopting Pulumi for IaC development. Languages like TypeScript, JavaScript, Python, Go, C#, Java, and YAML are used to define cloud resources. Because of this diverse support, most developers are able to start using Pulumi because they already know one of the languages.
4. Azure ARM
With a few exceptions, Azure ARM templates function similarly for Azure to AWS's CloudFormation Templates. The Azure-native method of managing infrastructure as code is to launch Azure Resource Manager (ARM) Template.
The intended infrastructure state is declared in ARM templates using the JSON format. There are two methods for creating ARM templates: using the Azure site or the Visual Studio code extension that Microsoft provided.
5. Google Deployment Manager
Google Cloud Platform (GCP) offers a service called Google Deployment Manager that helps to replicate compute environments in a predictable way. In contrast to AWS and Azure, the Google Deployment Manager solution helps create certain infrastructure components in GCP based on use cases, but it is not a complete Infrastructure as a Service (IaC) solution.
Configuration files in YAML format define the infrastructure. In configuration files, each infrastructure component is represented as a resource. Each resource has a type property that informs the deployment manager of which REST APIs to utilise in order to provision the resource.
6. CDKTF
Hashicorp offers a cloud development kit called CDKTF. Terraform, an IaC tool, is already well-known from Hashicorp. Terraform speaks JSON and a proprietary language called Hashicorp Configuration Language (HCL). Nonetheless, CDKTF is the recommended choice if we wish to use our familiarity with popular programming languages like Typescript, Python, Java, C#, and Go to build the infrastructure.
It's comparable to AWS CDK, except we take advantage of Terraform's end-to-end infrastructure lifecycle management capabilities, and it works with any cloud. In contrast to AWS CDK, CDKTF creates Terraform configuration files in JSON format from a script file written in the preferred language.
7. Microsoft Bicep
An open-source domain-specific language called Microsoft Bicep offers a syntax for deploying Azure resources. Because it's a domain-specific language, developers may have to climb a steeper learning curve due to its unique syntax. Additionally, because it uses Azure Resource Manager to construct and manage Azure cloud components, it is not cloud-agnostic.
As was covered in previous parts, when creating huge sets of infrastructure, using the JSON format that ARM templates employ to represent the IaC can get a little tedious. Programming can be done with Microsoft Bicep, leading to an easily traceable IaC.
8. Ansible
The main purpose of Red Hat Ansible is as a configuration management tool. Although Ansible offers a wide range of product features, we will focus on its infrastructure lifecycle management and Infrastructure as a Service (IaC) capabilities for the purposes of this post.
The idea of an Ansible playbook is what Ansible is built around. This file, which is in YAML format, outlines the steps that the Ansible host should take in order. The supply of public clouds is likewise covered by this idea.
Ansible does not rely on clouds. It helps manage computing, databases, networks, containers, and related infrastructure for AWS, GCP, OpenStack, and Microsoft Azure. Hundreds of modules are supported for these platforms.
9. Crossplane
When Crossplane is incorporated into a K8s cluster, users can utilise declarative configurations in the style of Kubernetes to provide and manage cloud infrastructure resources. In addition to offering a standardised API-centric approach to infrastructure management, this makes it easier to integrate Kubernetes with current operators, tools, and workflows. In this regard, Crossplane is comparable to a K8s operator for cloud providers, using a similar methodology for cluster infrastructure definition and deployment.
You can use Helm and Kustomize as it is deployed inside K8s when declaring your infrastructure resources. ArgoCD, Flux, and Spacelift are additional tools you can use to deploy your Crossplane resources.
10. OpenTofu
Please check this link for OpenTofu https://www.softwaredebug.com/2024/02/what-is-opentofu.html