Company
Date Published
Author
Mathew Pregasen
Word count
1324
Language
English
Hacker News points
None

Summary

Terraform and OpenTofu are both declarative Infrastructure as Code (IaC) tools that allow developers to provision infrastructure using a declarative coding language, similar to how Prisma provisions database tables. The primary distinction between the two lies in their licensing: Terraform's commercial developer, HashiCorp, shifted from an open-source Mozilla Public License to a Business Source License in 2023, which restricts the commercial use of its software, while OpenTofu remains under the open-source MPL 2.0 license. This shift led to OpenTofu becoming a popular alternative for those seeking an open-source solution, as it maintains feature parity with Terraform and can even use Terraform providers. Despite minor differences, OpenTofu is considered a "drop-in replacement" for Terraform, and both tools are supported by major IaC products. The licensing change by HashiCorp reflects a broader trend of open-source projects adopting more restrictive licenses to protect against competitive commercial distributions, a move that has seen mixed reactions within the developer community.