Terraform

Overview

Terraform is the most widely used infrastructure as code tool, and for data teams it is usually how warehouses, lakehouse workspaces, storage, networks and permissions get created and kept consistent across environments.

You describe infrastructure in HCL, Terraform works out the dependency order, and a plan shows what will change before anything does. State maps what is described to what actually exists, which is both its great strength and the thing teams must manage carefully.

Coverage is the reason it dominates: over 7,300 providers and 24,000 modules on the public registry. For data work, the Databricks and Snowflake providers are both partner-tier and heavily used.

Three products sit under the name. The CLI is what you run; HCP Terraform is the hosted service that holds state, runs plans from pull requests, enforces policy and detects drift; Terraform Enterprise is the self-hosted version of that service.

Licensing changed in August 2023, and it matters for anyone choosing today. From version 1.6 the CLI is under the Business Source Licence, which is source-available rather than open source, with each release becoming MPL 2.0 four years after publication. That change is what prompted the OpenTofu fork.

The other change worth knowing is ownership: IBM completed its acquisition of HashiCorp in February 2025, and HashiCorp now operates as a division of IBM Software. Version 1.16.3 was released in September 2026.

Key features and capabilities

The same headings are used for every infrastructure as code entry, so two tools can be read side by side.

How infrastructure is described

• HCL, a declarative configuration language, with modules as the unit of reuse
• Over 24,000 reusable modules on the public registry
• Native test files, with provider mocking from version 1.7

State and planning

• State maps configuration to real resources; local by default, remote backends for teams
• Plans preview changes before they are applied
• Drift detection through health assessments in the hosted service, on Standard and Premium
• Existing resources adopted with import blocks, which can generate configuration

What it can provision

• Over 7,300 providers: clouds, SaaS, Kubernetes and on-premises systems
• Data platforms: partner-tier Databricks and Snowflake providers
• Multi-cloud by design rather than tied to one platform

Policy, testing and secrets

• Three policy frameworks in the hosted service: Terraform policy, Sentinel and Open Policy Agent
• Policy failures can block a run, depending on enforcement level
• Built-in test framework with run and assert blocks, from version 1.6
• Custom role-based access and audit logging on the Premium tier

Team workflow

• Hosted service acts as the remote backend for state
• Workspaces, each managing one root module
• Speculative plans posted as checks on pull requests
• Private registry for internal modules and providers, plus run tasks

Integrations

• Version control integration drives the run workflow
• Agents run plans on your own private infrastructure
• Databricks and Snowflake providers for data platform work

How it runs

• CLI under the Business Source Licence from version 1.6
• HCP Terraform as a managed service, with a European option for data locality
• Terraform Enterprise for self-hosting, with audit logging and SAML

Pricing

Usage-basedHCP Terraform from $0.10 per resource a month

The CLI is free to use under the Business Source Licence. The hosted service is priced per managed resource per month: Essentials from $0.10, Standard from $0.47, and Premium from $0.99, which adds custom roles and audit logging. Drift detection needs Standard or above. Terraform Enterprise, the self-hosted edition, and the European service are quote-only. A free version of the hosted service exists but its limits are not published.

Vendor pricing page →

Demos and videos

• Getting into Terraform: HCP Terraform Tutorial · YouTube
• Getting into Terraform: drift detection and day 2 operations Tutorial · YouTube
• HashiCorp channel Channel or playlist · YouTube

About HashiCorp, an IBM company

HashiCorp was founded in 2012 by Mitchell Hashimoto and Armon Dadgar, and also makes Vault, Consul and Nomad. In August 2023 it moved Terraform from the Mozilla Public Licence to the Business Source Licence, keeping APIs and SDKs under MPL. IBM announced its acquisition in April 2024 and completed it in February 2025 at $35.00 a share, around $6.4bn, and HashiCorp now operates as a division of IBM Software. Its head office is not stated on its current about page.

Founded 2012 · hashicorp.com