OpenTofu: Open-source alternative to Terraform
OpenTofu is an open-source alternative to Terraform’s widely used Infrastructure as Code provisioning tool. Previously named OpenTF, OpenTofu is an open and community-driven response to Terraform’s recently announced license change from a Mozilla Public License v2.0 (MPLv2) to a Business Source License v1.1, providing everyone with a reliable, open-source alternative under a neutral governance model.
OpenTofu key features
Infrastructure as Code: Infrastructure is described using a high-level configuration syntax. This allows a blueprint of your datacenter to be versioned and treated as you would any other code. Additionally, infrastructure can be shared and re-used.
Execution plans: OpenTofu has a “planning” step where it generates an execution plan. The execution plan shows what OpenTofu will do when you call apply. This lets you avoid any surprises when OpenTofu manipulates infrastructure.
Resource graph: OpenTofu builds a graph of all your resources and parallelizes creating and modifying any non-dependent resources. Because of this, it builds infrastructure as efficiently as possible, and operators get insight into dependencies in their infrastructure.
Change automation: Complex changesets can be applied to your infrastructure with minimal human interaction. With the previously mentioned execution plan and resource graph, you know exactly what OpenTofu will change and in what order, avoiding many possible human errors.
Industry support
With broad support from industry leaders like Harness, Gruntwork, Spacelift, env0, Scalr, Digger, Terrateam, Massdriver, Terramate, and others, OpenTofu has received formal pledges spanning 140+ organizations and 600+ individuals. It will ensure its codebase’s continued development and availability and has a starting commitment of a minimum of 18 full-time developers over at least the next five years.
“We believe that the essential building blocks of the modern Internet—tools such as Linux, Kubernetes, and Terraform—must be truly open source,” said Yevgeniy (Jim) Brikman, CEO of Gruntwork, and OpenTofu founding team member. “That is the only way to ensure that we are building our industry on top of solid and predictable underpinnings. That is why we are so happy that OpenTofu is now a part of the Linux Foundation: having this project in the hands of a foundation, rather than a single company, means the solution will be community-driven and truly open source—always.”
“What differentiates open source are its inherent qualities: innovation, flexibility, transparency, and collaboration—attributes that are often hard to achieve with closed systems. In our organization, open-source technologies underpin various mission-critical solutions and have yielded significant business benefits. Our recent move to adopt OpenTofu for Infrastructure as Code aligns with this strategy. By doing so, we’re joining a community of developers, strategists, and organizations that prioritize extensibility and transparency. While it’s still early days for our use of OpenTofu, its community-driven ethos aligns well with our long-term objectives and seamlessly integrates with our existing technology stack,” said Mike Sutton, Allianz CIO.