Glossary

What Is Terraform?

HashiCorp Terraform

Terraform is an infrastructure-as-code tool that lets you define cloud resources (servers, databases, networks) in declarative configuration files. You write what you want, run terraform apply, and Terraform creates or modifies your infrastructure to match. It supports AWS, GCP, Azure, and 3000+ providers.

How Terraform Works

Terraform uses HCL (HashiCorp Configuration Language) to define resources. You declare what you want: an EC2 instance, an RDS database, a VPC. Terraform calculates what changes are needed (plan), shows you the diff, and applies the changes. Your infrastructure is versioned in Git like any other code.

Why Developers Use Terraform

Terraform is the industry standard for multi-cloud infrastructure management. It's used by teams of all sizes to manage AWS, GCP, Azure, and SaaS provider configurations. If you manage cloud infrastructure, you should know Terraform.

Key Concepts

  • HCL — HashiCorp Configuration Language — declarative syntax for defining infrastructure resources
  • State File — Terraform tracks what exists in a state file — compares it to your config to determine what to create, update, or destroy
  • Plan/Apply — terraform plan shows what changes will be made. terraform apply executes them. Always plan before applying.
  • Providers — Plugins that interface with APIs — AWS provider for EC2, GitHub provider for repos, Cloudflare provider for DNS

Learn Terraform — Top Videos

Terraform Educators

TechWorld with Nana
TechWorld with Nana

@techworldwithnana

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Helping millions of engineers to advance their careers with DevOps & Cloud education 💙 I create new videos every month...

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Technical Guftgu
Technical Guftgu

@technicalguftgu

DevOps

This channel is related to DevOps,Cloud Services like AWS,Azure,Google cloud Platform,Terraform,Telecom and computer net...

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Gaurav Sharma
Gaurav Sharma

@gouravsharma

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Welcome to the GouravSharma YouTube channel – where tech meets simplicity and excitement! I'm Gourav Sharma, your tech-...

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Frequently Asked Questions

Terraform vs Pulumi?

Terraform uses its own language (HCL). Pulumi lets you use TypeScript, Python, or Go. Terraform has a larger community and more examples. Pulumi is better if you prefer general-purpose programming languages.

Is Terraform free?

Terraform CLI is free and open-source. Terraform Cloud (remote state, team collaboration) has free and paid tiers. Most teams start with the CLI and an S3 backend for state.

Want a structured learning path?

Plan a Terraform Lesson →

Related Terms

Infrastructure as CodeDevOpsYAMLGitOps

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