OpenTofu

What is OpenTofu?

OpenTofu is a community-driven, open-source fork of Terraform, created after HashiCorp switched Terraform's license away from a fully open one in 2023. It's governed by the Linux Foundation rather than a single vendor, and it aims to stay compatible with existing Terraform configurations, providers, and state files so teams can move over without rewriting their infrastructure code. It exists specifically for people who want Terraform's declarative infrastructure-as-code workflow without depending on a single company's licensing decisions.

Key features

• Drop-in compatible with most existing Terraform HCL configurations and the broader provider ecosystem
• Governed under the Linux Foundation with a multi-vendor steering committee instead of one company controlling direction
• Fully open-source (MPL-2.0), so it can be redistributed and embedded without the license restrictions HashiCorp added to newer Terraform versions
• Active development pace, including features the community has pushed for that hadn't landed in Terraform
• Works with existing Terraform state files, so migrating an existing project is mostly a matter of swapping the binary

Who it's for

A natural fit for teams already using Terraform who want to avoid vendor lock-in or licensing uncertainty, especially companies building products on top of Terraform (like internal platforms or SaaS tooling) where HashiCorp's license terms were a real legal concern. Less relevant if you're not affected by the license change and are happy staying on Terraform itself.

Pricing

Free and open-source with no paid tier from the OpenTofu project itself; you only pay for the infrastructure it provisions and any third-party tooling you layer on top.