1. Automation pipelines

HashiCorp Terraform excels at provisioning infrastructure and provides basic infrastructure pipeline automation capabilities. These pipelines can handle core IaC such as running a plan or apply. However, they are weak at handling ad-hoc automation as part of an IaC workflow. Further, templating is largely missing so pipelines need to be defined for each workspace, a maintenance headache. 

Harness Infrastructure-as-Code Management (IaCM) provides a clear advantage in automation through its powerful pipeline capabilities. Harness users can automate end-to-end workflows, integrating security scans, approvals, and verification steps to ensure infrastructure changes are applied correctly and consistently. Harnessreduces the need for manual intervention and scripting, which is crucial for organizations operating at scale and because workflows are easily templated, a handful of pipelines can be leveraged by hundreds or thousands of workspaces. 

2. Governance

Harness takes governance to the next level with robust policy enforcement, AI-powered policy-as-code generation, and flexible approvals. The platform’s built-in security features, coupled with policy-as-code (OPA) capabilities, allow organizations to enforce compliance and security standards across all infrastructure changes. Additionally, Harness’s audit trail capabilities ensure full traceability of changes, which is crucial for meeting regulatory requirements in highly regulated industries like finance or healthcare. The ability to seamlessly integrate governance workflows into the broader DevOps pipeline ensures that governance doesn’t slow down innovation or deployments.

HashiCorp Terraform also provides policy-as-code via Sentinel for users on its enterprise version, but this capability is less tightly integrated into a broader pipeline. Terraform governance is effective but requires more manual setup, and policy management tools like Sentinel may not be as intuitive or easy to use compared to Harness’s AI-driven policy generation. For organizations seeking to automate governance across infrastructure, Harness provides a more seamless and integrated experience.

3. Pricing Model

Harness offers a fair and transparent pricing model based on the number of users and successful applies, making costs predictable and directly tied to value delivered. This pricing structure benefits organizations that want to avoid the complexities of Resource Under Management (RUM) models, which can be unpredictable and lead to escalating costs as infrastructure scales. Harness’s pricing ensures organizations aren’t penalized for the size of their infrastructure, making it especially attractive for enterprises managing large, multi-cloud environments.

HashiCorp Terraform’s pricing model, particularly in its enterprise and cloud versions, is based on RUM. This model charges based on the volume of infrastructure being managed, which can result in higher costs as infrastructure scales, even if the number of applies remains consistent. Recent licensing changes and price increases by HashiCorp have raised concerns among users, prompting some to look for more predictable alternatives like Harness IaCM. The difference in pricing models makes Harness the more cost-efficient option for organizations looking to control costs while scaling their infrastructure.

4. Modularity and Ecosystem Integration

HashiCorp Terraform, while strong in infrastructure provisioning, operates more as a standalone tool. Its modularity within the HashiCorp ecosystem is more limited to other HashiCorp products like Vault and Consul, which are focused on security and service discovery. While Terraform integrates with many third-party DevOps tools, it lacks a seamless, unified platform approach for DevOps and cloud cost activities.

Harness IaCM stands out as part of a broader, modular software delivery platform, offering a unified solution that can integrate with other Harness tools, including Continuous Integration (CI), Continuous Delivery (CD), Cloud Cost Management and the Internal Developer Portal. This modularity enables organizations to adopt Harness IaCM as part of a comprehensive DevOps strategy, simplifying workflows and reducing the need to manage multiple disparate tools. The ability to use Harness as both a standalone IaC tool or in conjunction with its broader ecosystem provides unmatched flexibility for teams.

5. Flexibility and Scalability

Harness IaCM’s flexibility extends beyond its modular platform capabilities. Harness also supports flexible state management and execution, including remote execution, which allows teams to run infrastructure commands from anywhere without manual intervention. This flexibility in execution is crucial for distributed teams or organizations with hybrid cloud infrastructures.

While HashiCorp Terraform supports both SaaS (HCP Terraform) and on-prem options, its SaaS version can be more expensive and requires more customization to achieve a similar level of flexibility as Harness. Terraform’s scalability is strong for infrastructure provisioning but requires more manual effort to scale governance, automation, and pipeline processes. For organizations seeking a streamlined, scalable solution with out-of-the-box capabilities, Harness is often the better choice.