github.com/Kevinklinger/open_terraform@v0.11.12-beta1/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