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FAQs

How DollarDeploy compares with Terraform

DollarDeploy and Terraform are both tools that help developers deploy and manage applications, but they serve different purposes and audiences, and operate at different levels of abstraction.

While Terraform is more targeted at enterprise customers, DollarDeploy is made to help indie developers, small startups, and teams wanting to deploy web apps quickly without deep infrastructure knowledge.

Alternatives to Terraform, such as CDK or Pulumi, also possess the exact characteristics of an enterprise tool, enabling the management of larger and more complex infrastructures beyond deploying a single application.

Comparsion

Type

DollarDeploy: Application deployment platform (PaaS-like)
Terraform: Infrastructure as Code (IaC) tool

Primary Use

DollarDeploy: Deploying web apps (Next.js, React, Docker Compose) with minimal setup
Terraform: Provisioning and managing cloud infrastructure (servers, networks, databases, etc.)

UI & UX

DollarDeploy: Intuitive UI, minimal clicks, automated setup, with lots of sensible defaults
Terraform: Requires writing configuration code (HCL), CLI, or automation pipelines

Supported Apps

DollarDeploy: Next.js, React, Docker Compose, GitHub repos
Terraform: Any app, but you must manually write Docker configuration for them

Hosting/Providers

DollarDeploy: Partners with DigitalOcean, Hetzner, or any provider (AWS, GCP, Azure, Scaleway, Hetzner, etc.) that can create virtual servers
Terraform: Need custom adapter, works with AWS, GCP, Azure, and many others.

Pricing

DollarDeploy: Starts at $1/month for first app
Terraform: Free/open source (CLI), paid for Terraform Cloud

Technical Overhead

DollarDeploy: Handles HTTPS, server updates, and maintenance
Terraform: The user manages all aspects of the infrastructure

Customizability

DollarDeploy: Limited to supported app types and integrations, but with Docker Compose, you can run anything
Terraform: Highly customizable, supports complex infrastructure

Ease of use

DollarDeploy: Extremely easy to use—minimal setup, few clicks to deploy
Terraform: Steep learning curve; requires knowledge of HCL and infrastructure concepts

Terraform pitfalls

As a tool designed for larger organisations and startups with dedicated infrastructure teams, there is a lot of complexity that only makes sense if you invest a significant amount of money and engineering effort into your infrastructure:

  • Code, deployment, and state management can be complex and error-prone, especially in large environments
  • Not an application deployment tool—users must separately handle app build, deploy, and CI/CD.
  • Can be slow and cumbersome for very large environments; scaling and DRY (Don’t Repeat Yourself) practices require additional tools (e.g., Terragrunt)
  • Some recent licensing and ecosystem concerns (e.g., BSL licensing changes)

Summary

  • DollarDeploy is ideal for developers who want a simple, affordable, and quick way to deploy web applications to their servers, without managing infrastructure details.
  • Terraform is ideal for organizations and teams that need complete control over cloud infrastructure, require advanced customization, and want to manage resources as code across multiple cloud providers.