Imagine what happen when you bought a new computer. You'll install an os, then install all apps you need, copy over all data you need, etc. Now imagine if you have 100 of new computers. The tools hashicorp made basically enable you to create a recipe to perform all this operation over a fleet of servers.

They provide tools that make it easier to automate large-scale deployments of servers and applications.

Instead of dealing with proprietary rest APIs to manage every third party service you use, you can use a declarative, idempotent format to define infrastructure that's compatible with all of them

They do tools for programmers. Big projects! But not stuff sold at retail. The plugin stuff is saying it plays well with the other kids on the playground.

And you get extras if you pay more.