What is OpenTofu used for?

OpenTofu is an open-source infrastructure as code tool that declaratively builds, changes and versions cloud infrastructure. It is a good fit for managing cloud resources in version control and moving away from proprietary-licensed Terraform.

Is OpenTofu open source?

Yes. OpenTofu is open source under the MPL-2.0 licence. Its source code is on GitHub at opentofu/opentofu and is written mainly in Go.

Yes. OpenTofu is open source, so the software itself is free to use.

What is OpenTofu an alternative to?

OpenTofu is an open-source alternative to HCP Terraform. Other open-source alternatives to HCP Terraform include Atlantis, Burrito and Semaphore UI.

Is OpenTofu actively maintained?

Yes. The most recent commit to OpenTofu was on 2 October 2026, and the latest release is v1.13.1, published on 1 October 2026. The project has 30k stars on GitHub.

OpenTofu: open-source alternative to HCP Terraform

About OpenTofu

OpenTofu is an open-source infrastructure tool for creating, modifying and versioning resources with safety and efficiency in mind. You describe infrastructure in a high-level configuration language, so a blueprint of your environment can be versioned and shared like other code. It can work with established cloud and service providers and with custom in-house platforms. It is written in Go and released under the MPL-2.0 license. It is widely understood as a community continuation of Terraform's open-source code.

Its key features are infrastructure as code, execution plans that preview what an apply will do, a resource graph that parallelizes work on independent resources, and change automation that applies complex changesets with little manual effort. Nightly builds are available. The community uses GitHub Discussions, the opentofu channel on the CNCF Slack, regular community meetings and a Technical Steering Committee.

Key features

Declarative infrastructure as code
Execution plans preview changes before apply
Resource graph parallelizes independent work
Works with many service providers
Change automation for large changesets
Nightly builds for early testing

Good fit for

→Managing cloud resources in version control
→Moving away from proprietary-licensed Terraform

Built with: Go
Tags: infrastructure-as-code; iac; terraform-alternative; devops; cloud; golang; provisioning; cncf

OpenTofu: questions and answers

What is OpenTofu used for?: OpenTofu is an open-source infrastructure as code tool that declaratively builds, changes and versions cloud infrastructure. It is a good fit for managing cloud resources in version control and moving away from proprietary-licensed Terraform.
Is OpenTofu open source?: Yes. OpenTofu is open source under the MPL-2.0 licence. Its source code is on GitHub at opentofu/opentofu and is written mainly in Go.
Is OpenTofu free?: Yes. OpenTofu is open source, so the software itself is free to use.
What is OpenTofu an alternative to?: OpenTofu is an open-source alternative to HCP Terraform. Other open-source alternatives to HCP Terraform include Atlantis, Burrito and Semaphore UI.
Is OpenTofu actively maintained?: Yes. The most recent commit to OpenTofu was on 2 October 2026, and the latest release is v1.13.1, published on 1 October 2026. The project has 30k stars on GitHub.