Modern enterprises rely on Infrastructure as Code (IaC) to manage complex cloud environments, and while Terraform remains a leading tool, many DevOps teams are now evaluating Terraform Cloud Alternatives. HashiCorp’s managed service offers collaboration features for Terraform deployments, but its limitations—such as exclusive support for Terraform, a resource-based pricing model that scales poorly, and restricted integrations in lower tiers—are prompting IT leaders to seek options that offer greater flexibility, scalability, and compliance-friendly capabilities by 2025.
To address these gaps, a range of Terraform Cloud alternatives has emerged, from dedicated IaC platforms to general CI/CD solutions and open-source tools. Below we review the best alternatives in 2025, focusing on their key features, scalability, and compliance capabilities.
Top Terraform Cloud Alternatives in 2025:
1. Spacelift
Spacelift is frequently highlighted as one of the top Terraform Cloud alternatives, built specifically to enhance and streamline infrastructure-as-code workflows. It’s a feature-rich, scalable platform that supports not only Terraform but also multiple IaC frameworks—such as Terragrunt, Pulumi, CloudFormation, Ansible, and more—for a truly unified infrastructure management experience.
- Features: Spacelift offers first-class support for multi-IaC workflows and uses Open Policy Agent (OPA) to enable policy-as-code for fine-grained control over infrastructure changes. Teams can define and enforce rules – from which resources can be provisioned to requiring approvals – all as code, ensuring compliance is baked into every pipeline step. It also provides Blueprints for self-service infrastructure templates, allowing developers to provision resources via pre-approved configurations.
- Scalability: Designed for enterprise scale, Spacelift enables organizations to manage many concurrent Terraform runs and complex dependencies with ease. It gives full control over workflows, including custom pre- and post-run hooks, and does not charge per resource under management, ensuring predictable costs. Its support for self-hosted workers makes it suitable for sensitive, high-volume workloads.
- Governance & Compliance: Spacelift emphasizes policy governance and security. OPA-driven policies allow enforcement of compliance standards, and fine-grained access controls make it easier to meet regulatory requirements. Self-hosted agents keep changes within your own infrastructure when needed. Features like audit logs, drift detection, and role-based workflows ensure compliance and security standards are met by design.
Insight: Spacelift outshines Terraform Cloud by offering unlimited integrations, full workflow customization, unlimited policies, and a more predictable pricing model. These strengths make it a compelling choice as an enterprise-grade Terraform Cloud replacement.
2. Pulumi Cloud
Pulumi Cloud is a strong alternative for organizations that use Pulumi as their IaC framework, allowing infrastructure to be defined using programming languages like Python, TypeScript, and Go.
- Features: Pulumi Cloud manages infrastructure state, secrets, and configurations across any cloud environment. It integrates seamlessly with CI/CD pipelines, enabling automated deployments as code is merged.
- Scalability: Pulumi Cloud scales to enterprise use cases by coordinating infrastructure provisioning across multiple clouds. Its pricing, however, is resource-based, similar to Terraform Cloud, so organizations must plan scaling costs accordingly.
- Governance & Compliance: Pulumi Cloud encrypts data, integrates with cloud KMS for secrets, and supports policy as code through Pulumi Policy (CrossGuard). With SSO integration and audit logs, it provides a strong compliance foundation.
3. GitHub Actions
GitHub Actions is a general-purpose CI/CD platform that can orchestrate Terraform runs within GitHub workflows.
- Features: With pre-built actions for Terraform, workflows can automatically run plans and applies when code is pushed or merged. This keeps infrastructure changes aligned with application development.
- Scalability: GitHub Actions can handle multiple pipelines in parallel but lacks native Terraform state management. Teams must design pipelines carefully to handle state, locking, and secrets at scale.
- Governance & Compliance: Governance depends on code reviews, branch protections, and repository policies. GitHub Enterprise adds features like audit logs and SSO, but Terraform-specific guardrails must be implemented by the team.
4. GitLab CI/CD
GitLab CI/CD combines version control, CI/CD, and DevOps tools in one platform.
- Features: GitLab pipelines run Terraform workflows tied directly to merge requests. This creates strong visibility and traceability for infrastructure changes.
- Scalability: GitLab supports cloud or self-managed deployment. Enterprises can scale self-managed runners and infrastructure to handle large Terraform workloads.
- Governance & Compliance: GitLab provides RBAC, audit logs, secret management, and compliance tools. Self-hosted options allow full control over data, aligning with strict compliance needs.
5. CircleCI
CircleCI is a flexible CI/CD platform known for performance and scalability, with support for Terraform automation.
- Features: CircleCI offers reusable orbs for Terraform, simplifying pipeline creation. Its visualization and monitoring tools help teams manage runs effectively.
- Scalability: CircleCI scales easily in the cloud and offers a self-hosted server version for enterprises with compliance requirements. It can run hundreds of jobs in parallel for large-scale infrastructure automation.
- Governance & Compliance: CircleCI provides encryption, SSO, granular access controls, and audit logs. Its self-hosted version is ideal for organizations that need to keep all data on-premises.
6. Atlantis
Among the leading terraform cloud alternatives, Atlantis stands out as an open-source tool that automates Terraform workflows through pull requests, making it a strong choice for teams embracing GitOps and collaborative infrastructure management.
- Features: Atlantis runs plans automatically on PRs and allows authorized applies through PR comments. This makes infrastructure changes peer-reviewed and auditable.
- Scalability: Atlantis is self-hosted, lightweight, and free of per-resource costs. It can scale via container orchestration but requires teams to manage operations and upgrades.
- Governance & Compliance: All changes flow through pull requests, providing audit trails and review processes. Self-hosting ensures compliance with data residency requirements, though enterprises must manage support and certifications themselves.
Conclusion
Each alternative brings unique benefits. CI/CD platforms like GitHub Actions, GitLab, and CircleCI offer flexibility and integration with software pipelines. Atlantis provides cost efficiency and strong collaboration through open source.
However, for enterprises that need a specialized, enterprise-ready IaC management solution, Spacelift stands out. With support for multiple IaC frameworks, strong compliance features, predictable pricing, and full workflow control, Spacelift is the most compelling Terraform Cloud alternatives in 2025.