GitOps vs Infrastructure as Code (IaC): Differences & Overlaps

GitOps is a DevOps practice that uses Git as the single source of truth for managing infrastructure and application configurations. It enables automated deployments, version control, and rollback using Git repositories and continuous delivery tools.

Key aspects of GitOps

GitOps strengthens CI/CD workflows by combining infrastructure as code with automated synchronization, improving reliability and traceability.

• Git as the source of truth: All infrastructure and application states are stored declaratively in Git
• Declarative infrastructure: It uses tools like Kubernetes manifests or Terraform to describe the desired state
• Automated reconciliation: Continuous deployment agents (e.g., Argo CD, Flux) ensure the running system matches the Git state
• Auditable and versioned: Every change is tracked in Git, providing history, review, and rollback capabilities
• Pull-based deployment model: Agents pull changes from Git. Some platforms, including Spacelift-powered GitOps stacks, can optionally use a push trigger when external approvals or change-management gates are required

GitOps limitations

GitOps has several limitations that can impact its effectiveness in complex or dynamic environments:

• Eventual consistency means changes aren’t always applied instantly, leading to short-lived drift
• Secret management is complex, requiring secure external tools or encryption workflows
• Rollback and history rely on Git, so large binaries are commonly stored in OCI registries or object storage and merely referenced from Git
• Tooling complexity increases with custom controllers or integration across environments
  

Infrastructure as code (IaC) refers to managing and provisioning computing infrastructure through machine-readable configuration files instead of manual processes. It allows infrastructure to be defined, deployed, and maintained using code.

Key aspects of IaC

IaC improves operational efficiency, reduces human error, and supports modern DevOps workflows by treating infrastructure with the same discipline as application code.

• Declarative or imperative syntax: Terraform or OpenTofu follow a declarative plan→apply cycle, tools like Ansible use an imperative, task-based approach
• Version-controlled: Infrastructure definitions are stored in source control systems like Git, enabling tracking and rollback
• Automated provisioning: Scripts and tools apply the infrastructure configuration to create or update environments
• Consistency and repeatability: Ensures that environments can be reliably reproduced across development, testing, and production

IaC limitations

IaC simplifies provisioning and improves consistency, but it has limitations:

• State management can be complex, especially where drift or manual changes create mismatches
• Testing infrastructure reliably is difficult and less mature than in application development
• Error handling and debugging are often harder due to indirect execution or cloud API delays
• Security risks can arise from misconfigured secrets, overly broad permissions, or code reuse
• Vendor lock-in may occur if IaC code is heavily tied to a specific provider’s resources or syntax, though OpenTofu’s provider-agnostic modules and OCI registry support (1.10+) lower that risk

GitOps and IaC are complementary practices, where GitOps builds upon IaC to automate and manage infrastructure through Git-based workflows.

Imagine pushing a Terraform update to a Git repository. A GitOps tool like Spacelift picks up that change and applies it automatically, ensuring the live environment mirrors the declared state in Git.

If anything drifts or breaks, the system can alert or even roll back to the last known-good commit. In essence, GitOps makes IaC operationally active, rather than just declarative.

While IaC focuses on provisioning and configuration using code, GitOps defines how to operate and manage IaC through Git workflows. Together, they enable scalable, secure, and automated infrastructure and application delivery.

In short, IaC defines the infrastructure, while GitOps governs how that definition is applied and maintained continuously in production.

Let’s go into more detail.

1. Primary focus

GitOps’s primary focus is automating infrastructure and application deployments through Git as the single source of truth, whereas IaC focuses on describing and provisioning infrastructure resources using code.

GitOps emphasizes continuous delivery and operational workflows by syncing the desired state in Git with the actual state in the cluster. It uses Git repositories as the source of truth for both infrastructure and application configuration, enabling automated reconciliation through tools like Argo CD or Flux.

In contrast, IaC tools like Terraform or Pulumi are centered on defining, provisioning, and managing infrastructure. Whereas IaC can be part of GitOps, its main concern is expressing infrastructure configuration in code rather than managing deployment pipelines or automated reconciliation.

2. Source of truth

One of GitOps’s core principles is treating Git as the single source of truth for everything: application configuration, infrastructure definitions, and change history. All modifications are made via pull requests, and the actual system is continuously synchronized with what’s declared in Git.

Contrast that with IaC, where the real source of truth is often a state file (like Terraform’s .tfstate) that lives elsewhere. While code might be stored in Git, the system’s actual state is tracked separately and may diverge from the Git repo over time.

3. Workflow style

GitOps adopts a pull-based workflow. Desired states are declared in Git, and a controller pulls changes and reconciles the actual environment accordingly. This provides continuous, automated synchronization.

IaC typically follows a push-based workflow. Infrastructure changes are executed manually or via CI/CD pipelines, which push changes directly into the environment. Reconciliation with the desired state happens only when the tool is run again.

4. Automation

GitOps automates provisioning, delivery, and deployment. Once a change is committed to Git, a controller (like ArgoCD or Flux) continuously reconciles the desired state with what’s actually running. 

IaC, on the other hand, automates the definition of infrastructure but not its deployment. 

However, when paired with CI/CD or a management platform like Spacelift, it fully automates deployment, bringing GitOps-style hands-off delivery to any IaC codebase.

5. State management

GitOps treats Git as the external, authoritative store of state. It uses declarative configurations and a controller that ensures the live system reflects that declared state at all times.

IaC tools maintain internal state files, which track the last known deployment. This state is consulted during operations to determine changes, but it doesn’t represent a continuously reconciled system. 

To achieve what GitOps does out of the box, manual drift detection or external monitoring tools must be layered on top.

6. Developer involvement

GitOps promotes a developer-centric model, where developers can directly define and manage infrastructure through Git commits and pull requests. This model empowers developers, reduces operational silos, and fosters a tighter integration between application and infrastructure delivery.

While IaC is also accessible to developers, ownership typically resides with operations or platform teams. Developers may contribute code, but infrastructure specialists usually handle deployments and state management.

7. Change tracking

With GitOps, every change, whether to infrastructure or application config, is version-controlled in Git. This provides a complete audit trail, easy rollback, and visual diffing of changes over time.

IaC can use Git for configuration management, but its change tracking often depends on the team’s implementation. For example, Terraform maintains a separate state file, and if changes are applied outside Git, traceability may be lost.

8. Managing complex infrastructures

In complex infrastructures, GitOps favors continuous compliance and hands-off synchronization, while IaC offers broader ecosystem support and flexibility for provisioning non-Kubernetes resources.

GitOps uses Git as the single source of truth and applies a pull-based deployment model. A Git repository defines the desired state, and a controller continuously reconciles the actual state in the environment to match. This model ensures strong drift detection, version control, and automated recovery, making it well-suited for dynamic, large-scale Kubernetes-based systems.

IaC typically operates with a push-based model, where infrastructure is provisioned manually or via CI pipelines. It is more broadly applicable across cloud and on-prem environments, but often lacks automatic reconciliation unless explicitly configured.

9. Security and compliance

GitOps emphasizes stronger version control and automated compliance, whereas IaC offers more flexibility but requires additional tooling to match GitOps’ security guarantees.

GitOps inherently enforces immutability and auditability by requiring all changes through version-controlled pull requests. This minimizes unauthorized modifications and integrates well with signed commits and policy enforcement (e.g., OPA). 

In contrast, traditional IaC workflows can involve direct CLI access or ad hoc scripting, which, unless tightly managed, increases the risk of configuration drift or privilege misuse.

GitOps ensures compliance by treating Git as the single source of truth, making every deployment traceable. It facilitates automated policy checks during PRs and aligns well with continuous compliance frameworks. 

While also version-controlled, IaC typically lacks an automated reconciliation loop and may require external processes to verify live-state consistency with declared configurations.

Read more: Infrastructure as Code (IaC) Security: 10 Best Practices

Spacelift is an IaC orchestration platform that uses GitOps to automate CI/CD for your infrastructure components. It supports OpenTofu, Terraform, Terragrunt, CloudFormation, Pulumi, Kubernetes, and Ansible.

The power of Spacelift lies in its fully automated hands-on approach. Once you’ve created a Spacelift stack for your project, changes to the IaC files in your repository will automatically be applied to your infrastructure. 

Spacelift’s pull request integrations keep everyone informed of what will change by displaying which resources are going to be affected by new merges. Spacelift also allows you to enforce policies and automated compliance checks that prevent dangerous oversights from occurring.

Spacelift includes drift detection capabilities that periodically check your infrastructure for discrepancies compared to your repository’s state. It can then launch reconciliation jobs to restore the correct state, ensuring your infrastructure operates predictably and reliably.

With Spacelift, you get:

• Policies to control what kind of resources engineers can create, what parameters they can have, how many approvals you need for a run, what kind of task you execute, what happens when a pull request is open, and where to send your notifications
• Stack dependencies to build multi-infrastructure automation workflows with dependencies, having the ability to build a workflow that, for example, generates your EC2 instances using Terraform and combines it with Ansible to configure them
• Self-service infrastructure via Blueprints, enabling your developers to do what matters – developing application code while not sacrificing control
• Creature comforts such as contexts (reusable containers for your environment variables, files, and hooks), and the ability to run arbitrary code
• Drift detection and optional remediation

If you want to learn more about Spacelift, create a free account today or book a demo with one of our engineers.

Although GitOps and infrastructure as code are closely related, and often used together, they are not interchangeable. IaC focuses on how infrastructure is defined and provisioned, whereas GitOps governs how that infrastructure is deployed, reconciled, and maintained over time using Git-based workflows.

Together, they can create a powerful, automated, and secure foundation for modern cloud-native operations, but understanding their distinctions is essential for using each effectively.