.avif)
Ansible and Terraform are powerful, open-source tools that help automate system configurations and deploy infrastructures. Ansible is a prominent automation tool that is usable across domains. Meanwhile, Terraform provisions and de-provisions cloud environments using the Infrastructure as a Code (IaC) approach.
While Ansible and Terraform share similarities, they also offer unique features for various cases. Both tools use different methods and have other crucial functionalities when implemented. Thus, understanding the differences is crucial in choosing the most appropriate solution for a specific infrastructure.
This article compares Ansible vs Terraform, including their differences, applications, language, and more.
Full Comparison on Ansible vs Terraform
Ansible and Terraform stand out among businesses and organizations due to their robust features and widespread adoption. Both tools can provision and manage configurations and execute commands remotely on a newly-created virtual machine.
Here’s a brief overview of Ansible and Terraform, including their configurations, main features, and architectures.
What is Ansible?
Ansible is a prominent open-source configuration tool IT and DevOps use for application deployment, task automation, and configurational log management. It uses a straightforward, YAML or human-readable language to determine the desired state of systems and applications.
Some of its key features include:
- YAML-Based Playbook: Ansible uses a YAML file for deployments, making it easier for IT teams to write and understand configuration tasks.
- Configuration Management: With Ansible, users can define the desired system state and ensure they keep implementing it.
- Agentless Architecture: This tool does not require agents to be installed to manage nodes. It uses SSH for communication, simplifies setup, and reduces overhead.
- Wide Range of Modules: Ansible offers reusable standalone scripts to perform a specific task. It covers various systems administration, cloud provisioning, and more.
- Strong Community Support: As an open-source tool, Ansible has a large active community that continues to create and develop modules and provide resources for solving issues.
Here are some use cases of Ansible:
- Configuration Management: Automating configuration servers and network devices to maintain stability and ensure systems are set up in a defined configuration
- Software Deployment: Automating software application deployment and installation across multiple servers or devices, including databases, web services, custom applications, and updates
- Server Provisioning: Quickly provisioning new servers or virtual machines in cloud environments or on-premises data centers, including AWS, Azure, and GCP
- Continuous Delivery: Integrating into CI/CD pipelines to automate deployment processes and testing, ensuring consistency and repeatability in the deployment process
- Container Orchestration: Managing and orchestrating container platforms like Docker and Kubernetes for containerized application deployment, management, and scaling
- Security and Compliance Automation: Implementing security policies and compliance standards across an organization's infrastructure to enforce security configurations, scan for vulnerabilities, and review system settings
What is Terraform
Terraform is an open-source solution designed for safely and efficiently building, changing, and versioning infrastructure. As an infrastructure-as-code (IAC) tool, it helps users manage and provision infrastructure through coding procedures and a declarative configuration language called HashiCorp Configuration Language (HCL).
Some of Terraforms best features include:
- Infrastructure as Code (IaC): Enabling teams to manage, track, and provision infrastructure through declarative configuration and version controls
- Multi-Cloud Support: Allowing teams to manage resources across diverse cloud environments and supports multiple cloud providers, including Azure, Google, AWS, and more
- State Management: Maintaining a state fill that tracks the resources it manages for planning updates and ensuring the desired state
- Rich Ecosystem and Providers: Offering an extensive ecosystem of provider plugins that can interact with diverse APIs to manage resources
Here are some use cases of Terraform:
- Multi-Cloud Deployment: Helping in application deployment across multiple cloud providers by allowing the same tool and syntax to manage resources in platforms like Google Cloud, AWS, Azure, and others
- Multi-Cloud Management: Handling databases, DNS entries, and other typical resources provided by cloud platforms
- Microservices Infrastructure: Managing infrastructure requirements of a microservices architecture to provision resources for every service efficiently
- Disaster Recovery: Defining infrastructure that can be easily replicated for disaster recovery scenarios
- Compliance and Governance: Ensuring infrastructure adherence to compliance and governance policies by using codified rules
Terraform vs. Ansible: Syntax
When choosing between Ansible and Terraform, it’s crucial to consider the syntax they use to ensure compatibility with your infrastructure.
Terraform uses HCL, a domain-specific language designed for IaC. It strikes a balance between machine-friendly and human-readable editability. Terraform can also read JSON configurations, offering a machine-friendly approach to your processes.
Meanwhile, Ansible uses YAML to define playbooks and roles. Every YAML file starts with a list. Each item lists key/value pairs, commonly called a “hash” or a “dictionary.”
Here's a table summarizing the syntax difference between Ansible and Terraform.
Besides the syntax, it’s also crucial to consider the language Ansible and Terraform use.
Terraform vs. Ansible: Language
Most IT and DevOps tools can be categorized into "procedural" and "declarative. Each category describes how tools perform their actions.
- Terraform uses HCL (HashiCorp Configuration Language), a declarative language designed to define infrastructure.
- Ansible utilizes YAML (Yet Another Markup Language), a procedural language for configuration management and automation.
Here's a comparison of the languages used to help you understand when to use Ansible vs Terraform.
The following section covers the difference between Ansible and Terraform regarding their capabilities.
Terraform vs Ansible: Capabilities
Evaluating the Ansible automation platform vs Terraform capabilities is crucial in understanding how these tools align with the organization's infrastructure and needs.
- Terraform primarily focuses on infrastructure provisioning, which involves providing and managing resources across several cloud providers.
- Ansible excels in configuration management, but it also supports provisioning. Additionally, it can manage systems running on-premises, in the cloud, and on containers, and it is not just for cloud infrastructure.
Read the table below to understand Terraform and Ansible's different capabilities better.
Terraform vs. Ansible: Approach
Understanding the approach used by Terraform and Ansible is crucial in handling infrastructures and configuration management. The two tools have different methodologies and techniques for interacting with data, with Terraform adopting a declarative approach and Ansible using an imperative or procedural approach.
- Declarative Approach: Method of writing code to describe the program's desired outcome rather than detailing how to do it.
- Procedural/Imperative Approach: Writing code to deliver the computer with a list of instructions or — a step-by-step guide — to complete a task.
The following section details the difference between the Terraform and Ansible approaches.
Ansible: Imperative Approach
When comparing Ansible vs Terraform in configuration, Ansible is crucial in smaller and simpler configuration deployments. Teams must specify the sequence based on YAML-based playbooks to be executed to gain the desired configuration or state.
Here are the key features of implementing an imperative approach:
- Step-by-step Procedure: Defining the exact steps to obtain the desired configuration
- Task Execution: Listing tasks in the playbook, offering flexibility regarding how users can perform the task
- Agentless Architecture: Operating without needing agents to use target machines and simplifies deployment
Terraform: Declarative Approach
IT teams that implement Infrastructure-as-code commonly use Terraform alongside other IaC tools. DevOps teams commonly compare Terraform vs CloudFormation when choosing the right tools for this infrastructure.
Terraform is the most preferred option since it can manage resources across many cloud sources. The tools approach the specific end state of the infrastructure and automatically determine the steps needed to achieve the desired state.
Here are some key benefits of implementing a declarative approach:
- State Management: Maintains state files that can track the current infrastructure state.
- End State Definition: Users can define what the final infrastructure should result without specifying the exact steps to get there.
- Automatic Dependency Management: Calculates the dependencies between resources and orchestration necessary to obtain the end state.
The next section describes the applications of Terraform and Ansible.
Terraform vs. Ansible: Applications
Regarding applications, Ansible and Terraform have different primary functions within the DevOps and IT infrastructure and workflows. Terraform is best for infrastructure provisioning across diverse providers. Ansible, on the other hand, excels in configurational management, orchestration, and application deployment.
Here's a table representing the application performance of Terraform and Ansible.
- Multi-cloud Support: Terraform and Ansible offer robust multi-cloud support. Terraform allows users to provision and manage infrastructure across multiple cloud providers. At the same time, Ansible mainly supports multi-cloud modules and provides resource management across different environments.
- Configuration Changes: Terraform's primary focus is provisioning and managing infrastructure resources, and it has limited capabilities for configuration management. On the other hand, Ansible is prominent in configuration management and enables extensive and detailed configuration.
- Application Deployment: Ansible is excellent in deploying applications and ensures consistency, while Terraform has moderate support for application deployment.
- Orchestration: The Terraform tools handle dependencies between infrastructure resources and offer basic orchestration capabilities. At the same time, Ansible has an advanced orchestration capability and can handle complex workflows and tasks.
- Infrastructure Provisioning: Ansible supports infrastructure provisioning, but Terraform is excellent at defining and provisioning infrastructure components across multiple providers.
In the following section, understand the difference between Ansible and Terraform's costs and security.
Terraform vs Ansible: Cost
Terraform and Ansible are open-source tools with no licensing fees, making them cost-effective solutions for organizations looking to automate infrastructure management.
- Terraform: Generally open-source with enterprise options available.
- Ansible: Open-source with Red Hat Ansible Automation Platform for enterprises.
When choosing which tools to consider in your organization's infrastructure and configuration management, here are some features to consider:
- Open source: Ansible and Terraform are free, open-source tools with different capabilities. Terraform allows users to leverage its features without upfront costs, while Ansible can be used without initial expenses.
- Enterprise Pricing: In Terraform, pricing varies based on the organization's needs and deployment scale, while in Ansible, it depends on the organization's size and requirements.
- Hidden Costs: When using Terraform, organizations may incur training and state management costs. The same is true with Ansible, but the price can be due to playbook management, infrastructure for Ansible Tower, and potential training.
Terraform vs Ansible: Security
Terraform and Ansible offer robust security features to ensure secure operations and protect sensitive data, which is crucial in IT and DevOps infrastructure.
- Terraform: Provides security features like state locking and remote state storage.
- Ansible: Offers secure credential storage and fine-grained access control.
The table below summarizes the security features of Terraform and Ansible.
Security in Terraform
This tool provides several key features designed to protect infrastructure configuration. Its key features include:
- IAM Roles: Use for fine-grained access controls.
- State Locking: Prevents concurrent operations from damaging and corrupting the state's life.
- Remote State Storage: Ensures safety and integrity and stores the state file in secure and remote locations.
- Credentials Management: Supports encryption of state files and integration with HashiCorp Vault for secure credential storage.
Security in Ansible
Ansible offers various security features to safeguard configuration management, such as:
- Security Automation: Integrating SIEM, IDPS, and firewalls from vendors like IBM, Checkpoint, and ITSM tools like ServiceNow
- Secure Credential Storage: Encrypting sensitive data by integrating it with the Ansible Vault
- Provides RBAC: Managing user access to networks, systems, or resources depending on their role within a team or a larger organization
Wrap Up
Ansible and Terraform are powerful infrastructure Code tools that offer different functionalities. Ansible is best suited for setting and automating activities on individual nodes using the YAML language. Meanwhile, Terraform is commonly used to maintain and provision cloud environments.
When choosing between Terraform and Ansible, it is crucial to compare and understand its features and capabilities, which include its syntax, language, approach, security, and more, to better cater to the company's infrastructure needs. By understanding all these factors, organizations can leverage and take advantage of the benefits of both tools and produce an end-to-end infrastructure management solution.
FAQs on Ansible Vs Terraform
Is Ansible better than Terraform?
Terraform is better if you prioritize user-friendliness, scheduling capabilities, and Docker integration.
What is replacing Ansible?
Terraform is another Ansible alternative for automating configuration management.
Which is better, Jenkins or Ansible?
Jenkins would be a better option than Ansible for smaller tasks that involve calling multiple tools, such as build, code quality analysis, and testing.
Does DevOps use Ansible?
DevOps mainly uses Ansible as it can streamline processes and perform many time-consuming, complex, and repetitive tasks.
Sources:
