Humanitec
Berlin-built orchestrator that wires your existing Terraform modules into a self-service golden path
Quick Overview
| Company | Ternki GmbH (trading as Humanitec) |
|---|---|
| Category | DevOps & Infrastructure as Code |
| Headquarters | Berlin, Germany |
| EU Presence | EU (Germany) |
| Data Location | Runs on GCP and AWS; self-hosted deployment available on the Self-Hosted plan |
| Open Source | No |
| Compliance | SOC 2 Type II; GDPR compliance via Vanta |
| Pricing | Teams from EUR 1,999/month (5 users) / Pro from EUR 4,999/month (50 users) / Enterprise and Self-Hosted: custom pricing |
| Free Option | Free trial available, no credit card needed |
| Replaces | Backstage plus hand-rolled platform engineering, Crossplane wired up manually |
Detailed Review
Humanitec, the trading name of Berlin's Ternki GmbH, does not provision infrastructure itself — it decides which of your existing Terraform or Crossplane modules runs for a given application in a given environment, and keeps that decision consistent as the organisation scales past the point where a wiki page of tribal knowledge can.
The Platform Orchestrator reads a workload's requirements, expressed through the open Score specification, and resolves them against the modules a platform team has already registered, which is a materially different job from Qovery's turnkey BYOC platform or Kubermatic's cluster fleet management sitting elsewhere in this list.
The result is a live resource graph showing what is provisioned, who owns it and what depends on what across the whole estate, drift detection that catches when reality diverges from the declared state whether a human or an AI agent caused it, and rollback to a known-good configuration in seconds rather than a redeploy-and-hope.
It is built to replace the do-it-yourself stack of ArgoCD, Crossplane, Terraform and glue scripts that platform teams otherwise stitch together and maintain by hand, or a homegrown internal developer platform built in-house to do the same job less consistently.
Humanitec is SOC 2 Type II certified with GDPR compliance handled through Vanta, and pricing starts at €1,999 a month for just five users on the Teams plan, rising to €4,999 for 50 users on Pro, with Enterprise and a self-hosted option priced on request for regulated environments.
It only pays off once the Terraform and Crossplane modules it orchestrates already exist — Humanitec is a control plane for infrastructure code an organisation already has, not a source of that code from nothing.
What Humanitec does well
- Orchestrates your existing Terraform/Crossplane modules instead of replacing them
- Live resource graph shows ownership and dependencies across the estate
- Drift detection with one-command rollback to a known-good state
- Self-hosted option available for regulated environments
- German company, SOC 2 Type II certified
Where Humanitec falls short
- €1,999/month minimum for just five users
- Needs Terraform or Crossplane modules already in place to orchestrate
- Real conceptual overhead (Score, workloads, resources) for a small team
- Not itself open source
Standout feature. Humanitec does not run your infrastructure — it is the control plane that decides which of your own Terraform modules runs where.
Pros and Cons
Pros
- Orchestrates your existing Terraform/Crossplane modules instead of replacing them
- Live resource graph shows ownership and dependencies across the estate
- Drift detection with one-command rollback to a known-good state
- Self-hosted option available for regulated environments
- German company, SOC 2 Type II certified
Cons
- €1,999/month minimum for just five users
- Needs Terraform or Crossplane modules already in place to orchestrate
- Real conceptual overhead (Score, workloads, resources) for a small team
- Not itself open source
Alternatives to Humanitec
Frequently Asked Questions
What is Humanitec?
Humanitec, the trading name of Berlin's Ternki GmbH, does not provision infrastructure itself — it decides which of your existing Terraform or Crossplane modules runs for a given application in a given environment, and keeps that decision consistent as the organisation scales past the point where a wiki page of tribal knowledge can.
The Platform Orchestrator reads a workload's requirements, expressed through the open Score specification, and resolves them against the modules a platform team has already registered, which is a materially different job from Qovery's turnkey BYOC platform or Kubermatic's cluster fleet management sitting elsewhere in this list.
Where is Humanitec based?
Humanitec operates from Berlin, Germany, which places it under EU (Germany). Compliance: SOC 2 Type II; GDPR compliance via Vanta.
What does Humanitec cost?
Teams from EUR 1,999/month (5 users) / Pro from EUR 4,999/month (50 users) / Enterprise and Self-Hosted: custom pricing. Free trial available, no credit card needed.
Who is Humanitec best for?
Platform teams building a self-service golden path. Humanitec does not run your infrastructure — it is the control plane that decides which of your own Terraform modules runs where.
What are the drawbacks of Humanitec?
€1,999/month minimum for just five users. Needs Terraform or Crossplane modules already in place to orchestrate. Real conceptual overhead (Score, workloads, resources) for a small team. Not itself open source.
Is Humanitec a good alternative to Backstage plus hand-rolled platform engineering?
Humanitec is built as a European alternative to Backstage plus hand-rolled platform engineering: Berlin-built orchestrator that wires your existing Terraform modules into a self-service golden path. It will not be a like-for-like feature match in every respect, so check the review above for where the two genuinely differ before switching.
How does Humanitec compare to other DevOps & Infrastructure as Code tools?
Humanitec is one of several European DevOps & Infrastructure as Code tools we cover. It is most often compared with Backstage plus hand-rolled platform engineering, Crossplane wired up manually.