github.com/maheshbr/terraform@v0.3.1-0.20141020033300-deec7194a3ea/website/source/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  ---
     6  
     7  # Terraform vs. Chef, Puppet, etc.
     8  
     9  Configuration management tools install and manage software on a machine
    10  that already exists. Terraform is not a configuration management tool,
    11  and it allows existing tooling to focus on their strengths: bootstrapping
    12  and initializing resources.
    13  
    14  Using provisioners, Terraform enables any configuration management tool
    15  to be used to setup a resource once it has been created. Terraform
    16  focuses on the higher-level abstraction of the datacenter and associated
    17  services, without sacrificing the ability to use configuration management
    18  tools to do what they do best. It also embraces the same codification that
    19  is responsible for the success of those tools, making entire infrastructure
    20  deployments easy and reliable.
    21