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Terraform is open source. What are people paying for?

by jstx1 3y ago

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.

Terraform is open source. What are people paying for?

by jstx1 3y ago

Terraform is open source. What are people paying for?

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.