terraform/website/intro/vs/boto.html.markdown

---
layout: "intro"
page_title: "Terraform vs. Boto, Fog, etc."
sidebar_current: "vs-other-boto"
description: |-
  How Terraform compares to cloud provider client libraries. 
---

# Terraform vs. Boto, Fog, etc.

Libraries like Boto, Fog, etc. are used to provide native access
to cloud providers and services by using their APIs. Some
libraries are focused on specific clouds, while others attempt
to bridge them all and mask the semantic differences. Using a client
library only provides low-level access to APIs, requiring application
developers to create their own tooling to build and manage their infrastructure.

Terraform is not intended to give low-level programmatic access to
providers, but instead provides a high level syntax for describing
how cloud resources and services should be created, provisioned, and
combined. Terraform is very flexible, using a plugin-based model to
support providers and provisioners, giving it the ability to support
almost any service that exposes APIs.