github.com/CodeherentUK/terraform@v0.11.10/website/intro/vs/chef-puppet.html.markdown (about) 1 --- 2 layout: "intro" 3 page_title: "Terraform vs. Chef, Puppet, etc." 4 sidebar_current: "vs-other-chef" 5 description: |- 6 Configuration management tools install and manage software on a machine that already exists. Terraform is not a configuration management tool, and it allows existing tooling to focus on their strengths: bootstrapping and initializing resources. 7 --- 8 9 # Terraform vs. Chef, Puppet, etc. 10 11 Configuration management tools install and manage software on a machine 12 that already exists. Terraform is not a configuration management tool, 13 and it allows existing tooling to focus on their strengths: bootstrapping 14 and initializing resources. 15 16 Using provisioners, Terraform enables any configuration management tool 17 to be used to setup a resource once it has been created. Terraform 18 focuses on the higher-level abstraction of the datacenter and associated 19 services, without sacrificing the ability to use configuration management 20 tools to do what they do best. It also embraces the same codification that 21 is responsible for the success of those tools, making entire infrastructure 22 deployments easy and reliable. 23