6 Best IDEs for Terraform in 2026

A Terraform IDE is any development environment optimized for writing, managing, and troubleshooting Terraform configuration files (typically .tf). Choosing the right Terraform IDE can make writing and reviewing infrastructure as code faster, safer, and easier to scale. 

In this article, we explore how different IDEs support Terraform, which features matter most, and how to choose a setup that scales with your team.

A Terraform IDE is a development environment optimized for writing, validating, and managing Terraform configuration files, typically with support for syntax highlighting, autocompletion, and integration with Terraform CLI. It simplifies infrastructure-as-code development by providing real-time feedback and reducing errors in .tf files.

You can write Terraform in any text editor, but a Terraform IDE:

• reduces copy-paste from docs
• catches mistakes early (before apply)
• speeds up writing and reviewing infrastructure as code

Think of it as the difference between writing Terraform in a plain text editor that doesn’t know providers or resources, and an editor that autocompletes aws_s3_bucket and warns you when you forget a required argument.

Choosing an IDE for Terraform development has a direct impact on how quickly and safely you can ship infrastructure changes. The right setup makes it easier to navigate HCL, use autocomplete and linting, catch errors before they reach production, and maintain consistent infrastructure as code across teams.

Here are the most popular IDEs for Terraform:

1. Visual Studio Code (VS Code)
2. JetBrains IntelliJ IDEA (with Terraform and HCL plugins)
3. VSCodium
4. Eclipse (with HCL Plugin)
5. Neovim or Vim (with Terraform and HCL plugins)
6. PyCharm

Visual Studio Code (VS Code) is a free, cross-platform source code editor from Microsoft that runs on Windows, macOS, and Linux. It combines a lightweight editor with features for editing, debugging, version control, and extensions, and is widely used as a general-purpose IDE for many languages and tools.

VS Code becomes a Terraform-focused IDE when you add the official HashiCorp Terraform extension, which provides Terraform-specific IntelliSense, validation, navigation, formatting, and direct access to Terraform commands and cloud integrations from inside the editor.

Key features for Terraform workflows

• Free, cross-platform editor: VS Code is a small download, runs on Windows, macOS, and Linux, and is designed to be quick to install and run on most developer machines, making it easy to standardize across teams working with infrastructure as code.
• Terraform-aware editing via HashiCorp extension: The HashiCorp Terraform extension adds Terraform language support and optional support for Terraform Stacks, which group multiple Terraform configurations, including syntax highlighting, IntelliSense-style completions for providers and resources, inline diagnostics, go-to-definition, code formatting with terraform fmt, a module and provider list, and commands such as terraform init and terraform plan accessible from VS Code.
• Integrated Git and source control: VS Code includes built-in Git support and a Source Control view, allowing you to stage, commit, diff, and manage branches for your Terraform configuration without leaving the editor, helping you keep infrastructure changes reviewable and auditable.
• Integrated terminal for Terraform CLI: A fully featured integrated terminal opens at the workspace root, allowing you to run commands such as terraform fmt, terraform validate, terraform plan, and terraform apply directly in the same window where you edit your .tf files. This reduces context switching between editor and shell.
• Remote and container-based development: Remote Development extensions allow you to open a folder in a container, over SSH, or in WSL, enabling you to run Terraform in the same environment as your cloud credentials while maintaining a consistent editor experience on your local machine.

Website: https://code.visualstudio.com 

Official documentation: https://code.visualstudio.com/docs 

IntelliJ IDEA is a cross-platform integrated development environment (IDE) from JetBrains, built for professional Java and Kotlin development but extensible to many other languages and tools through plugins. It runs on Windows, macOS, and Linux, with core functionality available for free and optional advanced features under an Ultimate subscription.

You typically install the Terraform and HCL plugin, which adds first-class support for Terraform, OpenTofu, and related tooling — turning IntelliJ IDEA into a full-featured infrastructure-as-code IDE with completions, inspections, navigation, and integrated command execution for Terraform-based workflows.

Key features for Terraform workflows

• Terraform and HCL language support: The Terraform and HCL plugin understands .tf, .tfvars, and .hcl files, providing syntax highlighting, context-aware completion, inspections, refactorings, variable search, and quick documentation based on provider metadata and the Terraform Registry. 
• Integrated Terraform and OpenTofu commands: Dedicated run configurations let us run terraform init, validate, plan, apply, destroy, and custom commands directly from the IDE, including via gutter icons in .tf files. Similar configurations are available for OpenTofu with the tofu CLI. 
• Template and Terragrunt awareness: IntelliJ IDEA recognizes Terraform templates (.tftpl files, which are reusable text templates used with the templatefile function) and Terragrunt configuration files, offering coding assistance, navigation (for example, from templatefile calls to template files), live templates, and completion for Terragrunt blocks and attributes.
• Flexible formatting and code style: We can use either the official terraform fmt formatter or IntelliJ IDEA’s own formatter for Terraform/OpenTofu, configure alignment and commenting rules, and choose to run Terraform formatting automatically on reformat—across .tf, .tfvars, and .hcl files.
• Cross-platform IDE with VCS and remote support: IntelliJ IDEA offers the same experience on Windows, macOS, and Linux, integrates with Git and other version control systems, and supports working with Terraform installed in WSL or other environments, ensuring Terraform projects remain versioned, reviewable, and consistent across platforms. 

Website: https://www.jetbrains.com/idea/ 

Official documentation: https://www.jetbrains.com/help/idea/ 

VSCodium is a community-maintained build of Visual Studio Code that ships as fully open-source binaries under the MIT license, with Microsoft branding and telemetry removed. It targets developers who want the VS Code editing experience but prefer a telemetry-free, fully open source build.

VSCodium runs on Windows, macOS, and Linux, and behaves almost identically to VS Code while using its own settings folders and update channels.

VSCodium effectively mirrors the VS Code experience: you install the HashiCorp Terraform extension from the Open VSX registry (rather than the Visual Studio Marketplace) to get language intelligence, validation, module/provider explorers, and HCP Terraform (formerly Terraform Cloud) integrations within the editor.

Key features for Terraform workflows

• Fully open-source, telemetry-free binaries: Builds VS Code’s open-source core into MIT-licensed binaries with Microsoft-specific telemetry, gallery, and branding removed — useful for teams with strict compliance or privacy requirements. 
• Terraform extension via Open VSX: Uses the Open VSX registry instead of the Visual Studio Marketplace, where the official HashiCorp Terraform extension is published, so you still get syntax highlighting, completions, diagnostics, and HCP Terraform workspace views in VSCodium.
• Cross-platform editor with VS Code compatibility: Available on Windows, macOS, and multiple Linux distributions (native packages, Snap, Flatpak, Nix, AUR), while remaining compatible with most VS Code extensions and settings—making it easy to standardize Terraform workflows across heterogeneous developer environments.
• Integrated Git and terminal for Terraform CLI: Offers the same built-in Git tooling and integrated terminal model as VS Code, so you can version Terraform configuration and run terraform init, plan, and apply directly from the editor window.
• Configurable through familiar VS Code-style settings: Reuses the VS Code UX (settings.json, keybindings, command palette, and workspace configuration), which simplifies migration from VS Code and enables existing Terraform editor setups to be replicated with minimal friction.

Website: https://vscodium.com 

Official documentation: https://github.com/VSCodium/vscodium/tree/master/docs 

Eclipse IDE is an open-source development environment from the Eclipse Foundation, built around a plugin architecture and available on Windows, macOS, and Linux operating systems. It is released under the Eclipse Public License 2.0 and maintained by a large community, with most distributions shipping language tooling, Git support, and additional frameworks out of the box.

You can install an HCL-focused plugin such as Extra Syntax Highlighting, which adds syntax highlighting for HashiCorp HCL (*.hcl) and Terraform (*.tf) files, and optionally pair it with Terra Architect, a Terraform-specific plugin that adds richer hints and refactoring on top of the core Eclipse editor. 

Key features for Terraform workflows

• Open, extensible IDE: Eclipse is a free, open-source IDE released under EPL 2.0 and designed as a modular platform, enabling the assembly of a Terraform-friendly setup by combining language plugins, VCS tools, and other extensions from the Eclipse Marketplace.
• HCL and Terraform syntax highlighting via plugin: The Extra Syntax Highlighting plugin uses TM4E grammars to colorize HashiCorp HCL files used by tools such as Terraform and Terraform files (alongside many other languages), giving .tf and .hcl code a readable, language-aware presentation in Eclipse.
• Optional Terraform-aware editing with Terra Architect: Terra Architect (Terra Arch) is a Terraform editor plugin for Eclipse that adds vibrant syntax highlighting, semantic error detection (including loop detection), an outline view of resources, usage finding, and refactoring tools such as cross-file rename — all tailored to Terraform configuration. Terra Architect can also find where resources are used across files and provides refactoring tools, such as cross-file rename for Terraform configuration.
• Integrated Git support: With the built-in EGit integration, Eclipse can perform common Git operations (staging, committing, merging, rebasing, pulling, and pushing) directly from the IDE, keeping Terraform configuration versioned and reviewable without leaving the workspace. 
• External tool integration for Terraform CLI: Eclipse’s External Tools mechanism facilitates the registration of Terraform CLI commands (for example, terraform init, validate, plan, apply, destroy) as reusable run configurations. This enables the execution of Terraform workflows from within the IDE, eliminating the need to switch to a separate terminal.

Website: https://eclipseide.org  

Official documentation: https://help.eclipse.org 

Neovim and Vim are open-source, modal text editors that run in the terminal (with optional GUI variants) and are designed for efficient, keyboard-driven editing. They are highly configurable and cross-platform, with long-standing plugin ecosystems that allow them to be used as focused environments for specific languages and tools, including Terraform and other infrastructure-as-code workflows. 

For Terraform, you typically combine core editor capabilities with plugins such as vim-terraform for Terraform-aware editing, vim-hcl for general HCL syntax support, and the official terraform-ls language server connected through Neovim’s built-in LSP client.

Together, these provide syntax highlighting, indentation, formatting, inline diagnostics, and Terraform CLI integration while keeping the overall setup lightweight. 

Key features for Terraform workflows

• Modal, keyboard-centric editing: Neovim and Vim use distinct modes for navigation and text insertion, so we can move through Terraform files, refactor blocks, and repeat edits quickly without leaving the home row — useful when working in large .tf codebases.
• Terraform and HCL plugins: The vim-terraform plugin detects Terraform-related file types, adds Terraform-aware syntax highlighting and indentation, and exposes a :Terraform command that can run Terraform subcommands with tab completion. Paired with vim-hcl, it improves readability across .tf, .tfvars, and other HCL-based files.
• Language server integration with terraform-ls: By hooking up the official Terraform language server (terraform-ls) through Neovim’s native LSP client, you get IDE-like features directly in the editor.
• Embedded terminal for Terraform CLI: Both Neovim and recent Vim versions provide a built-in terminal, so we can run terraform init, validate, plan, and apply in split windows alongside the code, keeping the editor and CLI in one workspace.
• Extensible, scriptable configuration: Configuration files (init.lua/init.vim or .vimrc) and plugin managers make it straightforward to compose a Terraform-focused setup, combining Terraform/HCL plugins, Git integrations, linters like tflint, and formatter hooks, while still using the same config across operating systems.

Websites: https://neovim.io / https://www.vim.org   

Official documentations: https://neovim.io/doc/user/ / https://vimhelp.org 

PyCharm is JetBrains’ Python-focused IDE for web, data, and AI/ML development, available on Windows, macOS, and Linux.

Because it runs on the same IntelliJ platform as other JetBrains IDEs, installing the Terraform and HCL plugin from JetBrains Marketplace turns PyCharm into a Terraform-capable environment with coding assistance, formatting, and run configurations for Terraform, OpenTofu, and Terragrunt.

For teams already using JetBrains for Python or full-stack development, this lets you manage application code and infrastructure as code in a single IDE, eliminating the need to switch tools.

Key features for Terraform workflows

• Terraform and HCL plugin integration: Install the Terraform and HCL plugin from JetBrains Marketplace to add first-class support for .tf, .tfvars, .hcl, and related files across Terraform, OpenTofu, and Nomad, reusing the same plugin as other IntelliJ-based IDEs.
• Smart coding assistance for Terraform/OpenTofu: Get syntax highlighting, full-line and basic completion for providers, resources, arguments, and functions, inspections for missing or deprecated elements, quick documentation pulled from the Terraform Registry, navigation to definitions, and in-place rename refactorings.
• Built-in Terraform and OpenTofu run configurations: Configure and run terraform init, validate, plan, apply, destroy, and arbitrary commands directly from PyCharm, either via dedicated run configurations or gutter icons in .tf files, with similar support for the tofu CLI.
• Formatting, templates, and Terraform-adjacent tooling: Use either the official terraform fmt formatter or PyCharm’s formatter for .tf, .tfvars, and .hcl files, create new files from Terraform templates, work with .tftpl template files, and get coding assistance plus run configurations for Terragrunt.
• Cross-platform IDE with a large plugin ecosystem: Run PyCharm on Windows, macOS, or Linux, and combine Terraform support with built-in Git integration, remote development, database tools, and thousands of Marketplace plugins — useful if you want Terraform support inside the same IDE you already use for Python and web development.

Website: https://www.jetbrains.com/pycharm/

Terraform support documentation: https://www.jetbrains.com/help/pycharm/terraform.html 

Using Spacelift with your Terraform IDE simply means splitting responsibilities: your IDE is where you write and review Terraform, while Spacelift is where you run, secure, and govern it.

In practice, the workflow looks like this: you edit .tf files in your preferred IDE, commit to Git (GitHub, GitLab, Bitbucket, Azure DevOps), and Spacelift listens for those VCS events. For each pull request or push, Spacelift runs Terraform plans, shows a preview of the proposed changes, and applies them using a consistent, auditable workflow once the change is approved and merged. 

This all happens through version control and Terraform itself, so it does not matter whether you use VS Code, IntelliJ IDEA, PyCharm, Neovim, or another editor because the integration model is the same.

With Spacelift, you get:

• GitOps-native runs: Spacelift connects directly to your Git repository and uses pull requests as the entry point for Terraform changes, providing plan previews and automatic applies after merge.
• Policy as code guardrails: You can define policies using Open Policy Agent (Rego) to control who can approve changes, what can be applied, and how runs are triggered, enforcing organizational rules without changing how engineers work in their IDE.
• Automatic drift detection and reconciliation: Spacelift can periodically re-run Terraform plans on your stacks to detect infrastructure drift and, if configured, propose remediation runs that follow the same approval process as normal changes.
• Flexible state and execution: Terraform state can remain in your existing backend or be imported into Spacelift, while execution occurs on managed or private worker pools, allowing teams to maintain their security and networking requirements while still working from any IDE.
• Multi-IaC and ecosystem integration: If you also use OpenTofu, Pulumi, or CloudFormation, Spacelift can orchestrate these tools alongside Terraform, with shared policies, dependencies, and integrations for testing, security scanning, and cost estimation.

The result is that you keep the local editing experience you like while Spacelift standardizes how Terraform runs in your organization, so plans, applies, approvals, drift checks, and audit history all live in one place, independent of the IDE each engineer prefers, whether that is VS Code, a JetBrains IDE, Vim, or another editor.

To learn more about Spacelift, create a free account or book a demo with one of our engineers.

Whichever editor your team prefers, the Terraform IDE is only half the story. Spacelift connects to your Git provider, runs plans on every change, enforces policy as code, and detects drift, so you keep your favorite workflow in VS Code, JetBrains, or Vim while we standardize how Terraform runs across your entire organization. 

Your IDE helps you write Terraform, while a platform like Spacelift helps you run it safely for the whole team.