Overview Table: Cluster API vs Terraform vs Helm vs Kustomize

Overview Table: Cluster API vs Terraform vs Helm vs Kustomize.md

Feature	Cluster API	Terraform	Helm	Kustomize
Configuration Language	YAML	HCL (HashiCorp Configuration Language)	YAML	YAML
Declarative Configuration	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes
Features	Custom Resource Definitions (CRDs) for managing cluster lifecycle, cluster API controllers for provisioning and managing resources	Infrastructure-as-Code (IaC) approach, supports various providers, state management	Templating engine, dependency management, release management	Declarative approach, supports overlays and patches for configuration customization
Imperative Configuration	Yes	Yes	No	No
Resource Management	Manages Kubernetes objects and their dependencies	Manages infrastructure resources such as VMs, networks, and storage	Manages Kubernetes charts and their dependencies	Manages custom resources and their dependencies
Reusable Configs	Supports reusable configurations	Supports reusable configurations	Supports reusable charts	Supports reusable custom resources
State Management	Tracks the current state of the cluster and updates it accordingly	Tracks the current state of the infrastructure and updates it accordingly	Tracks the current state of the chart and updates it accordingly	Tracks the current state of the custom resources and updates it accordingly
Use Cases	Suitable for managing complex Kubernetes deployments and workflows - create, configure, scale, upgrade, and delete Kubernetes clusters across multiple providers - manage the lifecycle of the cluster components and the workloads running on them	Suitable for managing infrastructure resources and provisioning - create and manage any kind of infrastructure resources, such as virtual machines, networks, storage, load balancers, etc. - integrate with various cloud providers and third-party services	Suitable for managing Kubernetes applications and charts - package Kubernetes resources into charts that can be versioned, published, and shared - install, upgrade, rollback, and uninstall charts with dependencies and configurable values	Suitable for managing custom resources and workflows - apply common configuration changes across multiple resources without duplication - compose and customize collections of resources using patches, bases, overlays, and generators