Why We Use Terraform for Every Infrastructure: Speed, Clarity, and Scalability

Managing cloud infrastructure manually—or even with hand-written scripts—can be a painful, error-prone, and ultimately costly process. At 10 Grounds, we’ve standardized our entire infrastructure workflow using Terraform, an open-source Infrastructure as Code (IaC) tool that lets you define, provision, and manage your cloud environments via declarative configuration files.

This article explains why Terraform is our go-to choice for AWS, Google Cloud, and DigitalOcean—across all types of projects, from MVPs to full-scale production systems.

The Problem with Manual Setup and Custom Scripts

Let’s face it: setting up infrastructure manually using a provider’s web UI might seem intuitive at first—but it doesn’t scale. Here’s why:

• It's easy to make mistakes: ‍Click the wrong button or misconfigure a service, and suddenly you're deploying insecure or expensive resources.
  

• Lack of version control: No Git history of changes, no easy rollback, no peer review.
  
  
• Hard to replicate: Want to copy your setup for another project or environment? Start clicking… again.
  
  
• Slow iteration: Debugging misconfigurations or redeploying environments becomes time-consuming and error-prone.
  

Coding your own deployment scripts using CLI tools like aws cli or gcloud can mitigate some issues—but that means writing and maintaining custom logic, often with poor portability across cloud providers.

Terraform Changes Everything

Here’s why Terraform has become the backbone of every infrastructure project at 10 Grounds:

✅ Infrastructure as Code (IaC)

Define your cloud infrastructure in .tf files. Every resource—networks, compute instances, storage, load balancers—is code. You can commit changes, review diffs, and roll back when needed.

🔄 Reusable Modules for Repeatability

We maintain a library of modules for ECS clusters, VPCs, and CI/CD pipelines. Spin up a new architecture in hours—not days—by reusing proven patterns.

🔍 Cost Transparency Without Manual Oversight

A common concern is that manually setting up infrastructure provides better cost awareness. Ironically, Terraform makes cost awareness even better. Because every resource is declared in code, it’s easy to see what's deployed and estimate its impact—even before applying changes. HashiCorp even provides cost estimation tools that plug into Terraform to give real-time insights into pricing.

Bonus: Unlike some orchestration tools, Terraform itself adds zero cost to your cloud provider bill. It's free to use and doesn't require always-on services unless you opt into Terraform Cloud.

Easy Modifications and Cloning

Need to deploy a copy of your production stack for staging? Just change a few variables. Terraform’s declarative model means updates are incremental, idempotent, and safe.

📋 Example: From Kubernetes to ECS with Terraform

In our recent cloud cost optimization project, one of the key savings came from replacing a Java + Kubernetes workload with an ECS-based stack. Using Terraform, we redefined the architecture in code, versioned it, and deployed it with a single command—cutting $7,000+ from the monthly bill.

Conclusion: Why We Use Terraform for Everything

We now use Terraform for 100% of our infrastructure projects, from startup MVPs to enterprise-grade systems. It brings visibility, reusability, and control—while reducing errors, deployment time, and cloud spend.

If you want help building modern infrastructure that scales, stays maintainable, and reduces costs from day one, we’re here to help.

👉 Talk to our DevOps team about setting up or migrating your cloud architecture with Terraform.