Compare Atlantis vs. Terragrunt

Atlantis operates as a self-hosted solution, ensuring that your credentials remain within your own infrastructure. It functions as either a Golang binary or a Docker image and is compatible with deployment on various platforms such as VMs, Kubernetes, and Fargate. This tool listens for webhooks from popular version control systems including GitHub, GitLab, Bitbucket, and Azure DevOps. It executes Terraform commands remotely and provides feedback with their outputs. Employed by one of the leading companies globally, it effectively manages over 600 Terraform repositories and supports a team of 300 developers. Having been in production for more than two years, each pull request now features a comprehensive log detailing the infrastructure changes made, the contributors involved, and the approvals granted. Atlantis includes the option to mandate approvals for every production change, facilitating compliance with audits without disrupting your workflows. Developers can initiate Terraform pull requests without needing to expose their credentials, while operators can set requirements for approvals before permitting application changes. This ensures that all alterations are applied prior to merging into the master branch, enhancing both accountability and oversight in the development process. Additionally, the system's detailed change logs promote transparency and traceability, making it an invaluable tool for managing infrastructure as code.

Terragrunt acts as a lightweight wrapper that enhances your ability to maintain dry configurations, facilitates the use of various Terraform modules, and aids in overseeing remote state management. To effectively handle your Terraform state, configure it in a root directory so that it gets inherited by all child modules seamlessly. You can also specify CLI arguments in the Terragrunt configuration to ensure that Terraform commands are executed consistently and repeatably. This approach allows you to execute a single command that applies to all modules simultaneously, rather than running it separately for each one. Additionally, Terragrunt has the capability to retrieve remote Terraform configurations, streamlining your workflow. Ultimately, this means you only need to define the Terraform code for your infrastructure a single time, making management much more efficient and organized. By leveraging Terragrunt, you can significantly reduce duplication and enhance collaboration across your infrastructure projects.