Terraform vs Ansible: Understanding the Key Differences and How to Use Them in 2025

Quick Summary

Introduction

As infrastructure grows, companies need to automate infrastructure management to manage everything while scaling their operations. Terraform and Ansible are two of the most popular automation tools. They serve different purposes in the DevOps lifecycle, but together, they help companies manage infrastructure at scale. Terraform specializes in provisioning infrastructure, while Ansible is popular for its configuration management and application deployment features.

According to HashiCorp, the AWS provider for Terraform has been downloaded over 3 billion times, showing how widely it’s used in infrastructure as code workflows. Ansible, meanwhile, remains a top choice for automation, with adoption in over 50% of enterprise environments (Source).

This article presents a detailed comparison between Terraform vs Ansible, covering their core features, ideal use cases, and how they can work together to support efficient and reliable DevOps practices.

Understanding Terraform and Ansible

Before comparing Terraform and Ansible, we need to understand what each tool does and where it fits in a DevOps workflow.

Terraform

Terraform, created by HashiCorp, is a popular open-source tool that helps teams automate the process of setting up cloud infrastructure. It uses a simple configuration language called HCL (HashiCorp Configuration Language) to define resources like servers, databases, networks, and storage across cloud providers such as AWS, Azure, and Google Cloud.

Terraform is best suited for:

• Provisioning infrastructure from scratch: Terraform allows teams to build cloud environments in a consistent & repeatable manner. Whether just one server or a complete stack, you can easily define everything in code and recreate it.
• Managing infrastructure as code: Terraform lets you define your infrastructure using code files, which can be tracked, reviewed, and versioned just like software code.
• Maintaining consistency: Terraform supports the concept of immutable infrastructure. In case of any error, Terraform replaces the existing resources with new ones instead of updating them. This helps avoid the risk of hidden issues or configuration drift.
• Maintaining infrastructure state: Terraform maintains a state file, which records the deployed infrastructure. This helps teams plan their updates safely, monitor changes, and avoid unexpected issues before making any changes to the infrastructure.

Teams often use Terraform early in their DevOps lifecycle to create the infrastructure that other tools, like Ansible, use late in the process for configuration management and related requirements.

Ansible

Managed and maintained by Red Hat, Ansible is another widely used open-source automation tool. Unlike Terraform, Ansible focuses on configuring systems, deploying applications, and managing daily operational tasks. It uses YAML-based playbooks and does not require any software agents installed on target systems, making the deployment process much easier to handle.

Ansible is well-suited for:

• Configuring servers and software: From installing packages to setting up databases and services, Ansible helps standardize environments.
• Managing existing infrastructure: Rather than provisioning, it works on systems that are already running.
• Making real-time changes: It allows updates and configuration tweaks without rebuilding entire systems.
• Running tasks in sequence: Tasks in Ansible are executed step-by-step, giving you more control over the order of operations.

Ansible fits naturally after the infrastructure is up. It ensures that all the systems are correctly configured and that the applications are deployed as expected.

After discussing the details of these two tools, let’s explore the key differences between Terraform and Ansible.

Key Points of Difference: Terraform vs Ansible

Here’s a quick overview of the key points of differences between Terraform vs Ansible:

After covering the major differences between Terraform vs Ansible, let us now explore the best practices to use each tool for maximum output.

Best Practices for Using Terraform

Here’s a quick overview of the best practices to use Terraform effectively:

• Write Clear and Modular Code: Organize your Terraform configurations into reusable modules. This keeps the code clean and makes it easier to manage infrastructure components across projects.
• Use Version Control to Track Changes: Keep all your Terraform files in a version control system like Git. This will let you track changes, collaborate with teams, and roll back to a previous version when required.
• Maintain the State File Securely: Store the Terraform state file in a remote backend like AWS S3 or Terraform Cloud. This helps teams share state safely and prevents conflicts.
• Check Before You Apply any Change: Always run the terraform plan to review every change before applying it in the infrastructure. This practice will help avoid unintended modifications and downtime.
• Automate with CI/CD Pipelines: Integrate Terraform into your continuous integration/continuous deployment pipelines. Automating provisioning reduces manual errors and speeds up infrastructure delivery.
• Limit Direct Changes: Avoid making manual changes to infrastructure outside Terraform. This reduces drift between the declared code and the real environment.

Best Practices for Using Ansible

Here’s a detailed overview of the best practices to use Ansible effectively:

• Write Simple, Readable Playbooks: Keep your Ansible playbooks easy to understand. Use clear task names and avoid unnecessary complexity to make maintenance easier.
• Use Inventory Files Effectively: Organize your hosts and groups in inventory files to target configurations precisely and avoid mistakes.
• Test Changes in Staging: Always test playbooks on staging or development environments before running them in production to catch issues early.
• Leverage Roles and Includes: Use Ansible roles to break down playbooks into reusable, modular parts. This helps in organizing large automation projects.
• Use Repeatable Tasks: Write tasks so they can run multiple times without causing any unwanted side effects. This ensures consistent and repeatable configurations.
• Automate Routine Tasks: Automate daily operational tasks like patching, user management, and service restarts with Ansible to reduce manual overwork.

How Terraform and Ansible Work Together

Terraform and Ansible are often used in the same automation pipeline, not because they perform the same function, but because they complement each other very well. Each handles a specific layer of the DevOps stack, and when used together, they form a reliable and scalable workflow. Let us understand how these two tools work together.

1. Start with Infrastructure Provisioning

Terraform handles the provisioning of infrastructure. It creates cloud resources such as virtual machines, networks, and storage, using code that can be versioned and reused. This helps teams build consistent environments across different stages of development and deployment.

2. Follow with Configuration Management

Once the infrastructure is ready, Ansible takes over. It connects to the newly created servers and configures them by installing packages, setting up services, and applying system-level settings. Since Ansible is agentless and uses SSH, the configuration step remains easy and simple.

Why This Combination Works

Using these two tools together helps divide tasks, making automation more manageable. Terraform focuses on setting up the environment, while Ansible ensures everything inside that environment runs correctly. With this combination, teams can work faster, reduce errors, and maintain a clean separation between infrastructure and software configuration.

Conclusion