Terraform vs Terramate
Terraform
developer.hashicorp.com
Terramate
terramate.ioSide by side
| Figure | Terraform | Terramate |
|---|---|---|
| Price from | $0.10/mo | $449/mo |
| Free plan | Yes | Yes |
| Free trial | Yes | Yes |
| Open source | — | Yes |
| Web | Yes | Yes |
| Windows | Yes | Yes |
| macOS | Yes | Yes |
| Linux | Yes | Yes |
| API | Yes | Yes |
| Self-hosted | Yes | Yes |
| Plans published | 10 | 3 |
| Spec score · Infrastructure as Code Tools | 8.7 (#3) | 8.6 (#4) |
| Company founded | HashiCorp was founded in 2012 by Mitchell Hashimoto and Armon Dadgar. | LinkedIn lists Terramate as founded in 2023. |
| Company headquarters | LinkedIn lists HashiCorp headquarters in San Francisco, California. | LinkedIn lists Berlin as Terramate's headquarters and gives Köpenicker Str. 124, Berlin 10179, Germany as the primary location. |
| Company legal name | Crunchbase lists the legal name as HashiCorp, Inc. | Crunchbase identifies the legal entity as Terramate GmbH. |
| Company size | LinkedIn lists HashiCorp as having 1,001–5,000 employees. | LinkedIn lists Terramate in the 11–50 employee range and displays 15 employees. |
| Documentation depth | Official documentation covers configuration language, CLI, HCP Terraform, Enterprise, modules, providers, plugin development, registry publishing, integrations, tutorials, and a sandbox. | The docs cover stacks, orchestration, workflows, change detection, code generation, CI/CD providers, cloud synchronization, policies, integrations, configuration blocks, functions and CLI commands. |
| Integrations | HashiCorp lists integrations for AI and MCP servers, audit, CI/CD, VCS, security scanning, policy, cost management, SSO, observability, and multi-cloud platforms. | Documentation lists integrations with GitHub, Slack, GitLab, OPA, Infracost, Checkov, Trivy and Terrascan. |
| Licence | HashiCorp changed future Terraform releases to the Business Source License 1.1, which restricts hosting or embedding the software to compete with Terraform. | The Terramate CLI repository is released under the Mozilla Public License 2.0. |
| Purpose | Terraform is an infrastructure-as-code tool for defining, provisioning, and managing cloud and on-premises resources through human-readable configuration files. | It helps platform teams productize reusable infrastructure patterns so developers and AI agents can self-serve across environments. |
| Security model | HCP Terraform uses TLS 1.2, isolated ephemeral execution environments, multiple availability zones, backups, and Vault-backed encryption at rest. | Terramate says it does not require access to cloud accounts, state files or source code, and CLI synchronization is opt-in. |
| Self-hosting | Terraform Enterprise is the self-hosted edition of HCP Terraform for organizations with strict security or compliance requirements. | The CLI runs in customer-controlled environments, while a private Cloud deployment is available only on Enterprise. |
| What it does | Terraform is an infrastructure-as-code tool for building, changing, and versioning compute, storage, networking, DNS, and SaaS infrastructure. | Terramate is an infrastructure-as-code management platform centered on a CLI that organizes infrastructure into stacks and adds cloud orchestration and observability. |
Plans
Terraform
- FreeFree
- StandardPriced on request
- PremiumPriced on request
- HCP Terraform FreeFree
- Terraform Community EditionFree
- HCP Terraform Essentials$0.10 a month
- HCP Terraform Standard$0.47 a month
- HCP Terraform Premium$0.99 a month
- EssentialsPrice not published
- Terraform EnterprisePriced on request
In their own words
Terraform
Terraform is an infrastructure-as-code tool for defining, provisioning, and managing cloud and on-premises resources through human-readable configuration files. Its core process is to write a configuration, review an execution plan, then apply approved changes. Providers connect Terraform to services through APIs, and the Terraform Registry lists providers for AWS, Azure, Google Cloud, Kubernetes, GitHub, and Splunk. Modules package reusable infrastructure configurations that users can find or publish in the Registry. The free Community Edition is a downloadable command-line tool. HCP Terraform adds remote execution, repository connections to GitHub, GitLab, and Bitbucket that can trigger plans after changes, and an API. It stores state remotely with encryption at rest and offers workspaces, single sign-on, and role-based access controls. HCP Terraform and Terraform Enterprise support Sentinel policies. HashiCorp cautions that policy-as-code is a guardrail, not a security boundary, and trusted providers and modules matter because they can access workspace variables and state. Downloads are available for Windows, macOS, and Linux.
Terramate
Terramate is an Infrastructure as Code orchestration and observability platform for platform teams. It helps teams package reusable infrastructure patterns so developers and AI agents can self-serve across environments. Terramate Cloud lists Terraform, OpenTofu, and Terragrunt as supported tools. Its capabilities include stacks, orchestration, custom workflows, rendered pull request plan previews, GitOps, drift detection, and drift reconciliation. Integrations include GitHub Actions, GitLab CI/CD, Bitbucket Pipelines, and Azure DevOps, and pull request integration is documented for GitHub, GitLab, Bitbucket, and other VCS platforms. Terramate says it does not need access to customer cloud accounts, state files, or source code; the CLI removes sensitive values from plan data before syncing it to the cloud. It lists AES-256 encryption at rest and HTTPS with TLS 1.2 for communications. Supported clouds are AWS, Google Cloud, and Azure. State management is self-hosted. Community is free for up to 2 users and 1,000 resources; Teams costs $449 a month and supports unlimited users and up to 5,000 resources. Enterprise pricing is custom.