The FTC recently issued a second request for IBM to provide information about its plan to acquire HashiCorp. Some may find this a bit odd, since the planned acquisition was reported several months earlier. It appears a deal has not been finalized yet, but HashiCorp says that they expect the purchase to be completed by the end of the year.
Even with the planned purchase still going through negotiations, many of HashiCorp’s customers are already contemplating a switch to other IaC solutions, as DevOps teams start to feel the heat of uncertainty. Terraform Cloud customers, for example, are exploring viable alternatives as it becomes apparent that IBM will be unable to provide clear details on what they intend to do with Terraform and other HashiCorp offerings.
Cloud infrastructure management has no room for uncertainties and ambiguous details, especially as cyber threats become increasingly sophisticated and aggressive. It would be expedient for Terraform Cloud users who are seeking a new hosted platform for infrastructure-as-code (IaC) collaboration to start vetting their options. Let’s take a closer look at some of the leading Terraform Cloud alternatives for buyers to consider.
env0
A SaaS platform founded in 2018, env0 is designed to help IaC teams manage, provision, and keep track of their cloud environments. It is a relatively new product compared to the more established players in the IaC scene. However, it offers a compelling range of features and has been gaining traction over the past couple of years.
env0 works with many of the popular tools used in IaC management, including Terraform itself, Terragrunt, and Pulumi. It supports automated provisioning and policy-as-code. It is built for collaborative work, providing shared environments and approval workflows. Additionally, it enhances the DevOps workflow by integrating with version control systems, CI/CD tools, and various cloud providers.
More importantly, env0 is notable for its robust security features. It has an advanced native role-based access control (RBAC) system that enables granular control by assigning custom roles at the team and user levels. It can also implement specific permissions for development, testing, and production environments. It provides secure secrets management with encryption at rest and in transit. Additionally, it can enforce pre-deployment checks with predefined policies and consistent compliance enforcement through policy-as-code.
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env0’s security features are mostly comparable to those in Terraform Cloud. The difference between the two, though, is that env0 focuses on multi-tool support. It is not limited to a specific ecosystem of tools and services, as it provides a unified way to securely manage cloud environments with multiple tools used. envo’s direct involvement in the OpenTofu initiative, currently seeing major momentum as a truly open-source successor to Terraform, is likewise encouraging.
Jenkins
While it does have a lot of use case overlap, Jenkins is far from an exact IaC collaboration alternative for Terraform Cloud. It is mainly an automation server widely used in continuous integration and continuous delivery (CI/CD) pipelines. Initially developed as an open-source tool called Hudson, today Jenkins can operate as a standalone server or a distributed system that can execute software builds and tasks on a variety of environments and platforms.
This ability to automate software building, testing, and deployment under a collaborative setup makes Jenkins a good option for teams that work on IaC provisioning and management. It provides an extensible platform for software projects with hundreds of plugins and custom scripts. Jenkins makes it possible to define CI/CD pipelines as code through declarative syntax or the use of scripts. Additionally, it enables the distribution of tasks and builds across different agents or nodes, which reduces build times because of parallel execution.
The issue with Jenkins as a Terraform Cloud alternative, though, is that it can be quite complex and has minimal out-of-the-box Terraform support. It requires a great deal of configuration and maintenance.
However, as far as security is concerned, Jenkins provides everything crucial for secure IaC management. It has credential management that includes secure secrets storage and credential scoping. Also, it offers RBAC with project-based matrix authorization, audit logging and activity monitoring, secure agent management, and access controls for external systems. Moreover, it can integrate with security tools such as several used for static analysis and vulnerability scanning.
Scalr
A flexible and highly scalable solution for cloud infrastructure management, Scalr is one of the leading options for infrastructure management. It integrates with Terraform and other IaC management tools to create a unified way to manage an organization’s cloud infrastructure. Scalr boosts the effectiveness of other IaC tools, especially in terms of infrastructure governance, policy enforcement, and operational efficiency.
Scalr provides centralized state management that includes state versioning and locking to ascertain that infrastructure updates do not result in inconsistencies or conflicts. It also centralizes the storage of state files across different projects and teams.
Scalr comes with multi-cloud and multi-tool support to provide organizations with the versatility they need as they work with multiple tools and environments.
On the security side, Scalr mirrors most of the functions and features Terraform Cloud affords its users. It has RBAC that enables granular permission management. It supports policy-as-code to ensure the consistent enforcement of security rules during infrastructure deployments. It also features comprehensive and detailed audit logs and the ability to provide insights into an infrastructure’s compliance with cybersecurity regulations.
Spacelift
As a CI/CD platform, Spacelift works with Terraform and other IaC tools. It is advertised as “the most flexible” IaC management platform, since it also works with Terragrunt, OpenTofu, Pulumi, CloudFormation, and Ansible. It provides governance, automation, and collaboration functions for cloud infrastructure management.
Spacelift is a sophisticated platform, which does not make it an appealing option for beginners. It is intended for users accustomed to advanced CI/CD features and complex policy management. Organizations may have to invest time and effort to master Spacelift.
Nevertheless, Spacelift provides security features that are already familiar to Terraform Cloud users. It enables granular permission management and workspace isolation through RBAC. It has a robust credential storage security and management system. Spacelift provides secure state storage to maintain the integrity of infrastructure states as well as the ability to version and lock states.
Additionally, it supports policy-as-code through Open Policy Agent (OPA), allowing the implementation of custom rules and compliance reviews within the infrastructure flows. Spacelift can also conduct pre-deployment checks to ensure that misconfigurations and other security issues do not make it to deployment.
Pulumi Cloud
Pulumi Cloud is the Terraform Cloud for Pulumi users. It streamlines the collaborative use of Pulumi’s capabilities for IaC provisioning and management. It features IaC code projects and stacks to ensure efficient collaboration, as well as detailed audit logs for all infrastructure changes. It also supports multiple clouds including AWS, Google Cloud, and Azure.
Pulumi Cloud is an excellent Terraform Cloud alternative for those who are already set to abandon the Terraform ecosystem. It uses general-purpose programming languages instead of the HashiCorp Configuration Language (HCL). Also, Pulumi has a smaller community and ecosystem of services relative to Terraform.
Pulumi Cloud also offers strong security features that are comparable to Terraform’s. It secures passwords, API keys, credentials, and other sensitive data in transit and at rest. It can limit access to secrets to specific environments, which means secrets only become accessible where they are needed. Additionally, Pulumi features RBAC with granular permissions including the ability to impose access controls on a project or organization level. Crossguard, Pulumi’s policy-as-code feature, ascertains the consistent enforcement of security policies.
GitHub Actions
Lastly, Terraform Cloud users can also consider GitHub Actions, a platform for automating software workflows. Its GitHub lineage and solid CI/CD capabilities make it an excellent option for building, testing, and deploying code. Teams can automate software workflows right from GitHub, directly within a GitHub repository.
GitHub Actions uses YAML-based configuration for its workflows and relies on event-driven triggers for its workflow automation. It also supports reusable workflows and customizable workflows through JavaScript or Docker containers. Moreover, it supports matrix builds to run multiple configurations simultaneously and self-hosted runners to enable users to run workflows on their infrastructure (not on GitHub).
GitHub is renowned as a reliable community and platform for developers, so security is not an issue with GitHub Actions. This platform has all the security features essential for code building, testing, and deployment.
It offers secure secrets storage and management, scoped access controls, RBAC, workflow protection and environment isolation, audit logging and monitoring, built-in code scanning, and secrets masking in logs. GitHub Actions can also integrate with third-party security tools to bolster cyber defense and maintain the integrity of IaC workflows.
Emphasizing Security in IaC Management
Terraform Cloud has been a great platform for maximizing IaC management with Terraform. However, HashiCorp’s decision to change its open-source licensing and the eventual acquisition of the company by IBM have triggered many organizations to consider moving on to other tools.
It is prudent for organizations to study their alternatives to Terraform Cloud without delay while stressing the importance of security threat monitoring. Instead of waiting for IBM’s plans with Terraform and the other products developed by HashiCorp, it is advisable to come up with plans or contingencies, including a shortlist of alternative tools or platforms in case it becomes unwarrantable to continue using Terraform Cloud or sticking with the Terraform ecosystem.
