Infrastructure as Code: Terraform vs Bicep for Multi-Cloud Deployments

Head-to-Head Comparison

When to Choose Terraform

• You operate across multiple cloud providers (AWS + Azure, or GCP + Azure)
• You need to manage non-cloud resources (DNS, monitoring, Kubernetes, GitHub repos)
• Your team already has Terraform expertise and established modules
• You want a unified language for all infrastructure, regardless of provider

When to Choose Bicep

• You're an Azure-only or Azure-first organisation
• You want zero state management overhead - Bicep deploys are stateless
• You need day-zero support for new Azure features (Bicep gets them immediately)
• Your team is migrating from ARM templates and needs a cleaner syntax

Example: Deploying an Azure Web App

Terraform

resource "azurerm_resource_group" "main" {
  name     = "rg-webapp-prod"
  location = "UK South"
}

resource "azurerm_service_plan" "main" {
  name                = "plan-webapp-prod"
  resource_group_name = azurerm_resource_group.main.name
  location            = azurerm_resource_group.main.location
  os_type             = "Linux"
  sku_name            = "P1v3"
}

resource "azurerm_linux_web_app" "main" {
  name                = "app-hibba-prod"
  resource_group_name = azurerm_resource_group.main.name
  location            = azurerm_resource_group.main.location
  service_plan_id     = azurerm_service_plan.main.id

  site_config {
    application_stack {
      node_version = "20-lts"
    }
  }
}

Bicep

param location string = 'uksouth'

resource rg 'Microsoft.Resources/resourceGroups@2023-07-01' = {
  name: 'rg-webapp-prod'
  location: location
}

resource plan 'Microsoft.Web/serverfarms@2023-01-01' = {
  name: 'plan-webapp-prod'
  location: location
  sku: { name: 'P1v3', tier: 'PremiumV3' }
  kind: 'linux'
  properties: { reserved: true }
}

resource app 'Microsoft.Web/sites@2023-01-01' = {
  name: 'app-hibba-prod'
  location: location
  properties: {
    serverFarmId: plan.id
    siteConfig: {
      linuxFxVersion: 'NODE|20-lts'
    }
  }
}

Our Recommendation

"The best IaC tool is the one your team will actually use consistently. Perfect tooling with no adoption is worse than good tooling with full adoption."