Infrastructure automation is becoming critical for engineering teams looking to efficiently build, deploy and scale applications. The complexity of modern infrastructure across hybrid and multi-cloud environments makes manual management impractical.
Two of the leading open-source tools to tackle infrastructure automation are HashiCorp‘s Terraform and the CNCF‘s Kubernetes. While their capabilities overlap in some areas, their core focuses are quite distinct.
This comprehensive guide will clarify the key differences between Terraform and Kubernetes to help you determine which solutions best fit your infrastructure automation needs.
The Rise of Infrastructure Automation
Before diving into the details of Terraform and Kubernetes, it‘s worth understanding why infrastructure automation has become so important.
Infrastructure teams can no longer rely on manual processes to configure and manage the many components underlying modern applications – virtual machines, load balancers, databases, storage volumes, networking rules, security policies and more.
As companies adopt hybrid infrastructure across on-prem data centers, multi-public clouds like AWS and Azure, and edge locations, the complexity compounds exponentially. Relying on bespoke scripts that target just one environment no longer scales.
This is where infrastructure as code (IaC) comes in – the concept of managing infrastructure through machine-readable definition files rather than physical hardware or interactive configuration tools.
The benefits of an infrastructure as code approach include:
- Efficiency – Less time wasted on manual tasks
- Cost Savings – Reduce waste by right-sizing infrastructure
- Consistency – Standardize environments across deployments
- Predictability – Review changes via version control
- Reliability – Minimize human errors and downtime
Research shows strong demand for infrastructure automation, with the global IaC market projected to grow over 30% annually to reach $2 billion by 2028. Adoption is thriving thanks to DevOps culture taking over software teams.
Top companies like Netflix, Uber and Spotify use IaC tools like Terraform and config management systems like Ansible, SaltStack or Chef to tame infrastructure complexity.
But when should you use Terraform vs Kubernetes for your infrastructure automation needs? Let‘s find out…
What is Terraform?
Terraform is an infrastructure provisioning tool developed by HashiCorp that lets you define, preview and deploy cloud infrastructure in a safe, consistent and efficient manner.
With a custom declarative language called HashiCorp Configuration Language (HCL), Terraform allows you to describe your desired infrastructure components like networks, virtual machines, Kubernetes clusters, databases and more in easy-to-read definition files.
Terraform can provision infrastructure across all major cloud platforms like AWS, Azure, Google Cloud, DigitalOcean and OpenStack. HashiCorp and the Terraform community contribute the hundreds of providers available to add support for new platforms and services.
A few key capabilities and benefits of Terraform:
✅ Infrastructure as Code – Config files act as source of truth for infrastructure
✅ Execution Plans – Preview changes before applying to avoid surprises
✅ State Tracking – Desired infrastructure state vs actual state
✅ Graph of Dependencies – Infrastructure interdependencies visualized
✅ Version Control Integration – Git ops workflow native
✅ Module Reuse – Refactor and reuse configs across environments
✅ Policy Enforcement – Govern infrastructure with validation logic
Since its open source release in 2014, Terraform adoption has skyrocketed to become a standard tool for operators and cloud engineers tasked with provisioning foundational infrastructure.
According to Datadog surveys, over 70% of tech leaders report using Terraform, especially in cloud-native organizations. It really shines for describing infrastructure resources like virtual machines, databases and networking.
However, Terraform is not designed to deploy containerized applications or manage their ongoing lifecycle. For this, Kubernetes enters the chat…
What is Kubernetes?
Kubernetes, or K8s, is an open source container orchestration platform originally designed by Google to manage gigantic workloads running across tens of thousands of servers.
Based on Google‘s earlier Borg system, Kubernetes excels at deploying, scaling and operating containerized applications based on microservices architectures.
If Terraform handles provisioning infrastructure resources like clouds and data centers, Kubernetes focuses on running applications on top of that infrastructure.
Key capabilities provided by Kubernetes:
✅ Container Deployment + Scaling
✅ Service Discovery + Load Balancing
✅ Storage Orchestration with dynamic provisioning
✅ Automated Rollouts + Rollbacks
✅ Horizontal Autoscaling based on usage
✅ Self-Healing – auto restarts and replacement
✅ Secret + Configuration Management
These capabilities allow developers to easily deploy software packaged in containers without worrying about infrastructure details. Kubernetes has quickly become the industry standard container orchestrator since reaching v1.0 in 2015.
Dominant tech giants like Google, Microsoft, AWS and RedHat all offer managed Kubernetes services now. And most CI/CD pipelines assume deployment onto Kubernetes clusters.
So while Terraform handles provisioning infrastructure, Kubernetes focuses on application lifecycle management via container orchestration. But together they offer a full-stack infrastructure automation solution.
Now let‘s clarify the key differences between these two essential DevOps tools.
Key Differences Between Terraform and Kubernetes
Though Terraform and Kubernetes are both open source infrastructure automation tools, they serve fairly distinct use cases with some overlap:
Focus Area
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Terraform – Infrastructure Provisioning
Terraform excels at creating foundational infrastructure across various public clouds as well as VMware, OpenStack and on-prem environments. -
Kubernetes – Container Orchestration
Kubernetes focuses on deployment, management and networking of containerized applications across clusters of machines.
Configuration Language
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Terraform – HashiCorp Configuration Language (HCL)
Terraform relies on HCL‘s simple declarative syntax to define infrastructure components. -
Kubernetes – YAML
Kubernetes configuration files use YAML markup (or JSON) to describe Kubernetes API objects like pods, services, ingress rules, etc.
Learning Curve
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Terraform – Easy to get started
Terraform has a gentle learning curve and most engineers can start provisioning infrastructure quickly using HCP configs. -
Kubernetes – Steep learning curve
Kubernetes is profoundly complex with its many abstract concepts. Operating production clusters requires significant expertise.
Planning Phase & Drift Detection
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Terraform – Built-in drift detection
Terraform can detect drift in infrastructure state through plan phase andterraform refresh. -
Kubernetes – None
Kubernetes lacks native support for infrastructure drift detection in config files or CLI tooling.
Resource Creation
-
Terraform – CLI-driven
TheterraformCLI applies and manages all changes based on HCL configs. -
Kubernetes – API-driven
The Kubernetes API receives YAML/JSON configs to create resources. kubectl CLI talks to this API.
So in summary:
- Terraform excels at provisioning, modifying and tracking cloud infrastructure resources.
- Kubernetes focuses on deployment, scaling and operations for containerized applications.
Together they provide a comprehensive infrastructure automation solution – Terraform handles the foundations, Kubernetes runs the software built on top.
Common Use Cases
Understanding the core capabilities of Terraform and Kubernetes sheds light on what use cases they each handle well:
Kubernetes Use Cases
⛵️ Container Orchestration Across Hosts
Coordinate clusters of containers across expansive infrastructure environments including VMs, bare metal servers, and various cloud platforms.
📈 Efficient Resource Management
Automatically scale application workloads up and down to meet demand and optimize infrastructure utilization. Avoid over provisioning.
🛠️ CI/CD Platforms
Run critical CI/CD pipelines natively on Kubernetes clusters for high-availability distributed builds. Compatible tools include Jenkins, Spinnaker, Argo CD/Events.
🗄️ Storage Orchestration
Simplify stateful application data storage with automated dynamic provisioning of network volumes and cloud storage buckets.
🔌 Service Discovery and Load Balancing
Kubernetes handles container health checking, DNS-based service discovery, and request routing logic out of the box.
In short, Kubernetes focuses primarily on deploying and running scalable applications with minimal operator burden.
Next let‘s explore the core Terraform use cases.
Terraform Use Cases
📝 Infrastructure Tracking & Governance
Terraform state files provide visibility into infrastructure components for auditing, access controls and change tracking.
☁️ Multi-Cloud and Hybrid Deployments
Provision consistent infrastructure across on-prem data centers, public clouds like AWS and GCP, and edge locations.
🌉 Multi-Tier Application Stacks
Coordinate infrastructure dependencies between related components like databases, caches, queues and app servers.
💻 Software-Defined Networking
Programmatically manage virtual networks, subnets, routing rules and NACLs/security groups.
In essence, Terraform handles the one-time setup and governance of foundational infrastructure across environments.
When Should You Use Each Tool?
Now that we‘ve explored the key capabilities and use cases for Terraform and Kubernetes, when should you use each tool?
Terraform
Use Terraform for provisioning long-lived infrastructure resources like:
- Cloud compute instances
- Databases + storage buckets
- Load balancers + networking
- Global infrastructure foundations
Kubernetes
Use Kubernetes for deploying and running containerized applications:
- Microservices and legacy apps
- Auto-scaling to handle traffic spikes
- Maximize developer productivity
- Minimize application downtime
For most modern DevOps environments, using both tools together is the best practice for infrastructure automation and application management.
-
Use Terraform to provision the Kubernetes cluster, related network policies and infrastructure dependencies.
-
Then leverage Kubernetes for simplified application deployment, scaling and operations.
This provides the best of both worlds – robust infrastructure foundations plus agile application workloads.
Terraform and Kubernetes – Better Together
When used together, HashiCorp Terraform and Kubernetes provide comprehensive infrastructure automation and application deployment solutions:
Terraform excels at provisioning, modifying and tracking infrastructure resources across virtually any platform – public clouds, private data centers, or edge locations. It acts as a single source of truth for infrastructure definitions via code.
Kubernetes focuses on deployment, scaling and operations for containerized applications across massive clusters of machines. It handles low-level orchestration details so developers can focus on coding.
Rather than viewing them as competing tools, most mature DevOps teams use Terraform + Kubernetes together for complete infrastructure automation.
Terraform handles provisioning robust foundations and Kubernetes runs scalable software on top. This empowers engineering velocity and reliability.
The Future of Infrastructure Automation
Both HashiCorp Terraform and Kubernetes benefit from vibrant open source communities constantly improving each project.
Recent innovations include:
Terraform
- First-class Kubernetes provider for deploying clusters
- Automated drift detection and remediation
- Integrated Sentinel policy engine
- $100M+ ecosystem funding
Kubernetes
- Windows Server node support
- Horizontal pod autoscaling improvements
- Project outgrow for scaling massive clusters
- Serverless Knative integrations
These leading infrastructure automation frameworks will continue advancing hand-in-hand to simplify cloud operations and empower developer productivity.
Conclusion
This detailed guide explored the key differences between Terraform and Kubernetes – two essential open source tools for infrastructure engineers and site reliability teams.
We saw that Terraform specializes in provisioning infrastructure resources while Kubernetes focuses on containerized application deployments.
Despite some overlapping capabilities, their domains remain distinct. Terraform handles creating and tracking infrastructure like networks and databases, while Kubernetes manages container lifecycles and communication.
The best practice employed by mature DevOps teams is using both tools together – Terraform for foundations and Kubernetes for applications. This provides robust infrastructure automation with agile application workloads on top.
By leveraging HashiCorp Terraform and Kubernetes, engineering teams can tame infrastructure complexity and unlock developer productivity – especially across heterogeneous hybrid cloud and multi-cloud environments.
