OpenTofu is a community-driven, MPL 2.0-licensed fork of Terraform created in September 2023 after HashiCorp relicensed Terraform under the restrictive Business Source License (BSL). Governed by the Linux Foundation and accepted into the CNCF Sandbox in April 2025, it is the open-source answer to the question of who controls the future of Infrastructure as Code. The project uses the tofu binary with a CLI workflow nearly identical to Terraform's, but has diverged in meaningful ways — native state encryption, provider for_each, early variable evaluation, ephemeral resources, and OCI registry support are all OpenTofu-only features. The key mental model: OpenTofu and Terraform share the same HCL language and provider protocol but are now separately governed products, and the divergence grows with every release.
What This Cheat Sheet Covers
This topic spans 16 focused tables and 151 indexed concepts. Below is a complete table-by-table outline of this topic, spanning foundational concepts through advanced details.
Table 1: Origins, Governance, and Licensing
OpenTofu's founding story and governance structure explain why many organizations choose it over Terraform. Understanding the BSL vs MPL 2.0 distinction, and who controls the roadmap, is essential context before evaluating any technical feature.
| Concept | Example | Description |
|---|---|---|
Gruntwork, Spacelift, Harness, env0, Scalr co-authored the manifesto — Aug 2023 | • Coalition response to HashiCorp's BSL relicense • called for Terraform to remain open-source or be forked under a neutral foundation | |
Project moved under Linux Foundation — Sep 2023 | • Ensures vendor-neutral governance • no single company can unilaterally change licensing or roadmap direction | |
Accepted to CNCF Sandbox — Apr 23, 2025 | • Gives OpenTofu the same foundation that hosts Kubernetes and Prometheus • confirms long-term community commitment | |
License: Mozilla Public License 2.0 (OSI-approved) | • Unambiguous open-source license • permits any use including building commercial products on top, with no "competing service" restriction | |
Terraform ≥ 1.6 → BSL 1.1; OpenTofu all versions → MPL 2.0 | • BSL restricts building competing hosted services using Terraform • MPL 2.0 has no such restriction — key for vendors and regulated sectors |