How to install terraform on Windows

What Is Terraform?

Terraform is a widely used infrastructure as code (IaC) tool.
While its core functionality remains free to use, in August 2023, HashiCorp, the company behind Terraform, changed its licensing model to the Business Source License (BSL). This means the source code is still available for viewing, but there are restrictions on its commercial use.

Terraform allows you to define and manage your infrastructure in a declarative way,
using human-readable configuration files. This enables you to automate tasks like:

  • Provisioning infrastructure across multiple vendors: Terraform is vendor-agnostic, meaning it can create and configure resources across various cloud providers (AWS, Azure, GCP) and even some on-premises infrastructure solutions.
  • Managing resources: It can manage virtual machines, networks, databases, and other infrastructure components, regardless of the vendor.
  • Ensuring consistency: By defining your infrastructure as code, Terraform ensures consistent deployments across different environments.
  • Version control and collaboration: Configuration files can be version controlled, allowing for easy collaboration and tracking changes to your infrastructure.

This tutorial will guide you through the process of installing Terraform on a Windows machine.

We will cover 2 methods of installing Terraform on Windows. The first one is downloading the binary file and the second is using chocolatey.

Binary Install

  • You can download the binary files here. Install the AMD64 for 64-bit systems or 386 for 32-bit systems.
  • After extracting the ZIP file, you should move terraform.exe into a directory of your choice so we can add it to the path.

In this example, we will put it under C:\Tools\terraform.

  • Next up, search for environment variables and open it in your windows search bar.
  • Under the Advanced tab, click on Environment Variables…
  • Edit the Path variable under User variables.
  • Click on New and add the path to where terraform.exe is located.
  • Press OK twice to close the windows.

To make sure Terraform was installed correctly, open cmd and type:

terraform -version

If this fails, your computer might require a restart for changes to take place.

Chocolatey

We assume that Chocolatey is already installed on your machine. If you haven’t done so yet, please install it.

  • To install Terraform, simply open cmd as administrator and run:
choco install terraform

To make sure it installed properly, run:

terraform -version