5 ms·

Hopefully they realize their products are too expensive for the value they provide beyond the open core offering. The recent Terraform Cloud pricing changes ar

Hopefully they realize their products are too expensive for the value they provide beyond the open core offering. The recent Terraform Cloud pricing changes are not going in the right direction, please hire folks who understand how to price and capture value for your customers appropriately.

jstx1 3y ago
Terraform is open source. What are people paying for?
- red-iron-pine 3y ago
  The cloud version & enterprise support. At every F500 or other large Enterprise I've been at you need to have some sort of support and escalation model. Lotta pushes to SaaS offerings too, esp. turnkey ones where it's their cloud and you pay an all-in price for software+infra+support.
- candiddevmike 3y ago
  This right here HashiCorp, this is part of the problem. Layoffs are not going to solve this. I think Terraform has the same problem as Docker: HashiCorp isn't capturing the value of Terraform, and other companies are making more money off of it by seeing the real opportunity (like Docker/Docker Inc and Kubernetes). Cloud providers are reaping the benefits, and the other TACOS (Terraform Automation & Collaboration Software) like SpaceLift and Env0 see the value in bringing more collaboration and workflow aspects. There's nothing really "sexy" about automating and governing Terraform apply/plan.
  - Spooky23 3y ago
    Docker is even worse in that they changed terms and started sending goons to recover what they believe they are owed. Didn’t even try to sell the value of what they offer. I didn’t give them a dime and wouldn’t consider doing so in the future.
  - cbsmith 3y ago
    I find it weird that anyone thinks even the people deciding to do the layoffs think they are a solution. They are a consequence of a problem.
- akiselev 3y ago
  A key value store in the cloud. With locking!
  - firesteelrain 3y ago
    But why? Free Terraform with Azurerm backend gives you this (speaking from an Azure context)
- freedomben 3y ago
  Support is a big part of what you get. Red Hat uses a similar model. You also get some niceties like state management/locking in the cloud. I'd be paying but it's too expensive for what you get. Cost prohibitive for a small shop.
  - firesteelrain 3y ago
    State management and locking is free with Azure and azurerm backend. AWS can use a S3 as a remote backend for free as far as Terraform is concerned.
- jonfw 3y ago
  At IBM cloud a terraform service (schematics) is offered as a freebie, I can’t imagine that someone would pay significant cash for it
- pknomad 3y ago
  Terraform Core is open source and free. TFE and Terraform Cloud (aside from the capped free version) are not. Terraform still needs bit of help when you want to run production grade: state-locking (dynamodb) state-storing (s3) workspace/template management CI/CD functions (atlantis) secret management (vault) and TFE gives you these right out of the box in a neatly packaged way. Of course, you can come up with different tools to meet those reqs (parenthesized above)
  - firesteelrain 3y ago
    Azure has its own Key Vault so no need for the Vault product. As far as state, you can remotely store states in an Azure storage account. Storage container provides locking via the lease mechanism. Terraform as a product is awesome and the azurerm backend plus azurestack provider is great. I hate Bicep and Terraform simplifies it all.
mindwok 3y ago
I find this attitude entitled. They have never made a profit, and are trying to find a pricing model that allows them to exist as a company while still providing value, which is extremely challenging with an open core model. If you believe the value is not there, then do not pay for the services and continue to use the free versions.
- candiddevmike 3y ago
  Play open core games, win open core prizes. Companies think open core is like a shareware/trial model. It's not. Instead, you have to spend almost the same amount of resources as you put into the open core offering into the enterprise version to move the needle.
techdragon 3y ago
I hadn’t seen these and had been looking at Terraform Cloud for something recently… and as an existing Terraform user who has had to debug and examine things… that pricing is basically a perverse incentive waiting to happen. I’ve seen a number of terraform modules that try to use many small elements for things like AWS IAM permissions or Kubernetes configMaps, it helps document their individual purpose, it makes the output a bit cleaner sometimes, and until these pricing changes was basically just a style choice… now however it’s going to cost people more… I’d estimate at least a hundred (probably more) unnecessary resources are spread throughout the various custom modules and terraform registry modules in the last terraform repo I looked at… which adds up fast. So moving forward I’d expect to see a slow trend towards features/fixes that function with more resources rather than less… Terraform has become somewhat legendary for its glacial pace of progress (go to GitHub, sort all the issues by thumbs up, have a read, see what gets closed what gets re-requested, what gets ignored with multiple pull requests) … this pricing change doesn’t fill me with confidence in the projects long term future… and neither does laying off staff at a company that already appears to be struggling to support its existing products while simultaneously trying to grow several new ones.
- glenngillen 3y ago
  Of the thousands of providers that exist for Terraform (where the implementation details you discuss would exist) only a half dozen are maintained by HashiCorp. Usually in some form of partnership with the vendor in question (e.g., AWS). There’s no pricing based incentive structure for the type of sprawl you’re worried about. Not to say the trend you observed won’t continue. Just that if it does it’ll likely be due to composability or maintenance needs of the specific providers rather than juicing pricing.
  - techdragon 3y ago
    The sprawl of providers contains a lot of stale forks and copies, and on top of that its not easy to say “let’s just use John Smiths provider to setup the root credentials of our new K8S cluster because Hashicorp aren’t fixing issues we care about. I use a few third party providers and the quality difference is wildly variable, the update cadence is sporadic and unreliable on average, and not wanting to build scripts and tools is why maintaining my own terraform providers forked fro hashicorp isn’t really viable time wise either.
thedougd 3y ago
Something is off with their product management. Terraform Cloud misses all the use cases, the performance, the features, and a sane pricing structure that competitors like Scalr and Spacelift understand. I gave them two years but had to move away. There's a huge prize for the company who delivers on how to build change management (windows, approvals, etc) into the IaC workflow.
time0ut 3y ago
The Terraform Cloud pricing model is absurd. It does not align with how the tool is used or how it provides value. It comes off as rent seeking. The problem is that, once you know what you are doing and understand the ecosystem, you can build a better experience using open source than they provide through TFC/TFE. I wish I had a better idea for them…
taacc3 3y ago
[dead]

jstx1 3y ago

Terraform is open source. What are people paying for?

red-iron-pine 3y ago
The cloud version & enterprise support. At every F500 or other large Enterprise I've been at you need to have some sort of support and escalation model. Lotta pushes to SaaS offerings too, esp. turnkey ones where it's their cloud and you pay an all-in price for software+infra+support.
candiddevmike 3y ago
This right here HashiCorp, this is part of the problem. Layoffs are not going to solve this. I think Terraform has the same problem as Docker: HashiCorp isn't capturing the value of Terraform, and other companies are making more money off of it by seeing the real opportunity (like Docker/Docker Inc and Kubernetes). Cloud providers are reaping the benefits, and the other TACOS (Terraform Automation & Collaboration Software) like SpaceLift and Env0 see the value in bringing more collaboration and workflow aspects. There's nothing really "sexy" about automating and governing Terraform apply/plan.
- Spooky23 3y ago
  Docker is even worse in that they changed terms and started sending goons to recover what they believe they are owed. Didn’t even try to sell the value of what they offer. I didn’t give them a dime and wouldn’t consider doing so in the future.
- cbsmith 3y ago
  I find it weird that anyone thinks even the people deciding to do the layoffs think they are a solution. They are a consequence of a problem.
akiselev 3y ago
A key value store in the cloud. With locking!
- firesteelrain 3y ago
  But why? Free Terraform with Azurerm backend gives you this (speaking from an Azure context)
freedomben 3y ago
Support is a big part of what you get. Red Hat uses a similar model. You also get some niceties like state management/locking in the cloud. I'd be paying but it's too expensive for what you get. Cost prohibitive for a small shop.
- firesteelrain 3y ago
  State management and locking is free with Azure and azurerm backend. AWS can use a S3 as a remote backend for free as far as Terraform is concerned.
jonfw 3y ago
At IBM cloud a terraform service (schematics) is offered as a freebie, I can’t imagine that someone would pay significant cash for it
pknomad 3y ago
Terraform Core is open source and free. TFE and Terraform Cloud (aside from the capped free version) are not. Terraform still needs bit of help when you want to run production grade: state-locking (dynamodb) state-storing (s3) workspace/template management CI/CD functions (atlantis) secret management (vault) and TFE gives you these right out of the box in a neatly packaged way. Of course, you can come up with different tools to meet those reqs (parenthesized above)
- firesteelrain 3y ago
  Azure has its own Key Vault so no need for the Vault product. As far as state, you can remotely store states in an Azure storage account. Storage container provides locking via the lease mechanism. Terraform as a product is awesome and the azurerm backend plus azurestack provider is great. I hate Bicep and Terraform simplifies it all.

mindwok 3y ago

I find this attitude entitled. They have never made a profit, and are trying to find a pricing model that allows them to exist as a company while still providing value, which is extremely challenging with an open core model. If you believe the value is not there, then do not pay for the services and continue to use the free versions.

candiddevmike 3y ago
Play open core games, win open core prizes. Companies think open core is like a shareware/trial model. It's not. Instead, you have to spend almost the same amount of resources as you put into the open core offering into the enterprise version to move the needle.

techdragon 3y ago

I hadn’t seen these and had been looking at Terraform Cloud for something recently… and as an existing Terraform user who has had to debug and examine things… that pricing is basically a perverse incentive waiting to happen. I’ve seen a number of terraform modules that try to use many small elements for things like AWS IAM permissions or Kubernetes configMaps, it helps document their individual purpose, it makes the output a bit cleaner sometimes, and until these pricing changes was basically just a style choice… now however it’s going to cost people more… I’d estimate at least a hundred (probably more) unnecessary resources are spread throughout the various custom modules and terraform registry modules in the last terraform repo I looked at… which adds up fast. So moving forward I’d expect to see a slow trend towards features/fixes that function with more resources rather than less… Terraform has become somewhat legendary for its glacial pace of progress (go to GitHub, sort all the issues by thumbs up, have a read, see what gets closed what gets re-requested, what gets ignored with multiple pull requests) … this pricing change doesn’t fill me with confidence in the projects long term future… and neither does laying off staff at a company that already appears to be struggling to support its existing products while simultaneously trying to grow several new ones.

glenngillen 3y ago
Of the thousands of providers that exist for Terraform (where the implementation details you discuss would exist) only a half dozen are maintained by HashiCorp. Usually in some form of partnership with the vendor in question (e.g., AWS). There’s no pricing based incentive structure for the type of sprawl you’re worried about. Not to say the trend you observed won’t continue. Just that if it does it’ll likely be due to composability or maintenance needs of the specific providers rather than juicing pricing.
- techdragon 3y ago
  The sprawl of providers contains a lot of stale forks and copies, and on top of that its not easy to say “let’s just use John Smiths provider to setup the root credentials of our new K8S cluster because Hashicorp aren’t fixing issues we care about. I use a few third party providers and the quality difference is wildly variable, the update cadence is sporadic and unreliable on average, and not wanting to build scripts and tools is why maintaining my own terraform providers forked fro hashicorp isn’t really viable time wise either.

thedougd 3y ago

Something is off with their product management. Terraform Cloud misses all the use cases, the performance, the features, and a sane pricing structure that competitors like Scalr and Spacelift understand. I gave them two years but had to move away. There's a huge prize for the company who delivers on how to build change management (windows, approvals, etc) into the IaC workflow.

time0ut 3y ago

The Terraform Cloud pricing model is absurd. It does not align with how the tool is used or how it provides value. It comes off as rent seeking. The problem is that, once you know what you are doing and understand the ecosystem, you can build a better experience using open source than they provide through TFC/TFE. I wish I had a better idea for them…

taacc3 3y ago

[dead]