The Terraform era is fading. In 2025, OpenTofu is what real devs are betting their stacks on.
This article talks about:
The problem with Terraform. (with real world examples)
OpenTofu 101 (why matters in 2025)
Who is switching and why?
Cheat sheet, checklist, helpful resources, and the communities you should follow to get you fully equipped.
1. When infrastructure felt stable (until it wasn’t)
Picture this: Imagine yourself immersed in the complexity of IaC, struggling to complete a seemingly straightforward Friday deployment. Your Terraform plan is clean, your pipeline’s green, and the weekend looks promising. Then the Slack message hits:
“Hey, anyone see this Terraform licensing update? Are we still allowed to use it?”
Cue the existential dread. 🫠
It started back in 2023, but in 2025, the ripples are still hitting infra teams hard. Terraform served as a reliable tool for infrastructure-as-code development. It didn’t ask much of you, and in return, it delivered reproducible infra without drama. You didn’t need to think about licensing, governance models, or whether your provider might sue your startup for using a fork.
Then came the switch: HashiCorp moved Terraform from a permissive open-source license (MPL) to the Business Source License (BSL). On paper, you could still use it “freely.” In reality? The fine print slapped every dev with the haunting thought:
€50 free credits for 30 days trial Promo code: devlink50
“Wait, are we the product now?”
Suddenly, the community wasn’t just debating HCL formatting preferences; it was debating legal risk. And out of that chaos emerged OpenTofu.
2. New to the Terraform license mess? Here’s the short version.
Imagine you’re playing Minecraft with friends. You build this huge, open-world fortress using a bunch of cool mods that the whole server relies on. One day, the creator of your favorite mod says:
“Hey, you can still use this, but if your server grows too big or makes money, I might sue you. Or charge you. Or just say no.”
Now everyone’s panicking, and your friend forks the mod and says, “Let’s just make our own version. Same features, no drama.”
That’s basically what happened.
In August 2023, HashiCorp pulled a surprise Pikachu face on the entire community by shifting Terraform to a license that said: “You can look at the code. You can run the code. But if you try to build a product that competes with us? We’ll be seeing you in court.”
This didn’t sit well with open-source maintainers, infra engineers, or platform teams who had built years of tooling on Terraform. Suddenly, companies had to hire lawyers just to do a terraform apply.
Real dev-world impact
Companies like DuploCloud warned that even using Terraform in a CI pipeline for clients could technically be seen as “embedding.” Their post explained:
“The problem is that the language is extremely ambiguous. It’s under HashiCorp’s discretion what is deemed competitive.” — DuploCloud blog
2. If your tool wrapped Terraform (think Atlantis, Terragrunt, Open Policy Agent integrations), you had to reevaluate whether you could legally ship it.
From NixKnight’s analysis:
“While using Terraform CLI locally might be fine, repackaging it or offering hosted infrastructure becomes risky under the new license.” — NixKnight blog
Toolmakers didn’t want lawsuits. They wanted YAML to parse properly. Instead, they were parsing license clauses.
3. Even inside orgs, Terraform modules often get reused across environments, teams, and even subsidiaries. In those cases, many engineers were told to “pause and wait for legal review.”
If you’ve ever had to explain to your manager why your pipeline can’t deploy because of a license review instead of a merge conflict… you knew the pain.
So why does this matter in 2025?
Because those legal questions never got clear answers.
There’s no official list of what “competitive” means.
You can be non-commercial today, but get flagged tomorrow if you build a hosted product around Terraform.
Thousands of devs are still running Terraform in prod without realizing they’re out of bounds.
That’s why OpenTofu wasn’t just a protest, it was a legal relief.
It says: “Here’s a tool you can trust without needing to escalate to legal every time you apply.”
3. OpenTofu 101, What it is (and what it isn’t)
So after Terraform’s license switch, the internet did what it always does: complain on Reddit, tweet angry memes, and then… fork the thing.
Enter OpenTofu 💪 the community’s “no, seriously, we’ll just build our own” answer to Terraform’s BSL switch. And it’s not just a clever name (though it is deliciously clever).
What exactly is OpenTofu?
OpenTofu is a community-maintained, fully open-source fork of Terraform, based on version 1.5.5 , the last one released under the permissive MPL 2.0 license.
It was launched by a coalition of infrastructure veterans including folks from Gruntwork, Scalr, Harness, and other DevOps tooling companies who didn’t want to build on shaky ground.
It’s now hosted under the Linux Foundation, meaning it’s governed by a foundation, not a VC roadmap. And it has one mission:
“Make Terraform’s core available without legal gray areas or corporate gatekeeping.”
Simple. Respectable. More tofu, less bull.
✅ What OpenTofu is
A drop-in replacement for Terraform 1.5.x
Licensed under MPL 2.0 — truly open
CLI-compatible (it just works™)
Managed by a growing contributor community
Already used in production by orgs like GitLab and Spacelift
Governance with actual transparency (they publish meeting notes!)
It’s not just a backup plan anymore — it’s becoming the plan.
4. So..who’s switching, and why it’s not just FOSS purists
At first, the OpenTofu crowd felt like the usual suspects: Reddit hackers, free software evangelists, and indie DevOps people with dotfiles older than Terraform itself.
But that’s not the case anymore. This isn’t a small rebellion anymore; it’s a movement.
Real teams are already making the switch
GitLab publicly endorsed OpenTofu in 2024 and started building against it → Source
Spacelift, a Terraform automation platform, added full OpenTofu support → Source
Scalr, another big player in infra orchestration, helped co-found the project → Source
These aren’t fringe players — they’re companies that build infra for thousands of engineers. If they trust OpenTofu to run production infrastructure, it’s not a toy. It’s a serious tool.
Why devs are leaving Terraform behind
It’s not just about licenses or GitHub drama.
It’s about:
Trust: OpenTofu is owned by the community, not a vendor with shifting terms.
Transparency: You can contribute, audit, or fork without fearing a lawsuit.
Control: You won’t wake up one day to find the rules changed again.
And yeah, it also just works. If you’re using Terraform v1.5, you can literally swap the binary and keep going. It’s the lowest-friction fork migration you’ll probably ever do.
5. OpenTofu Migration Cheat Sheet
For developers who just want infra to work (without surprise legal terms)
Basic Swap-Out: Just replacing Terraform? If you’re on Terraform v1.5.5 or below, OpenTofu is a drop-in replacement.
# Back up Terraform binary (optional) mv terraform terraform.bak
🎯 Yes, it still runs as—forterraform CLI compatibility.
Before You Switch Checklist
Using Terraform v1.5.5 or earlier
Not depending on BSL-locked versions
Not locked into Terraform Cloud features
Not deeply reliant on closed-source providers/modules
Infra Tools that Work with OpenTofu
Module & State Compatibility
.tf files? Still work.
State files? Still work.
Providers? Mostly work — just validate versions.
Workspaces? Compatible.
Remember:
OpenTofu = Terraform 1.5.5, minus the licensing drama Still HCL. Still plan, apply, destroy. Just… without needing a legal team on call.
6. Helpful resources for devs rethinking Terraform in 2025
Whether you’re already on OpenTofu or still side-eyeing the Terraform binary in your toolchain, these reads, tools, and links will help you rebuild with confidence.
Core reading & guides:
The OpenTofu Docs https://opentofu.org/docs The official, evolving source of truth. Includes migration guides, provider compatibility, governance info, and FAQs.
HashiCorp’s BSL Licensing FAQ https://www.hashicorp.com/license-faq Read it yourself. Understand what “competitive use” actually means — or doesn’t.
Infrastructure as Code (2nd Ed.) by Kief Morris A high-level handbook on doing infra right — declaratively, cleanly, and without digging yourself a YAML grave.
Tools & wrappers:
Terragrunt https://terragrunt.gruntwork.io A thin wrapper that helps organize your infrastructure into reusable modules — even works with OpenTofu.
Spacelift & Scalr Dev-friendly IaC platforms that now fully support OpenTofu as a first-class citizen. Great for policy-as-code, drift detection, and team-wide visibility.
tfenv https://github.com/tfutils/tfenv Still juggling between Terraform and OpenTofu versions? tfenv is your go-to version manager.
Governance & security:
OPA (Open Policy Agent) https://www.openpolicyagent.org Add policy checks and guardrails to your Terraform/OpenTofu plans without hardcoding rules.
Checkov https://www.checkov.io A static analysis tool to scan infrastructure code for misconfigs, secrets, and best practice violations.
Bonus: community spots worth lurking in
Reddit: r/devops + r/terraform Where all the licensing meltdowns, migration wins, and memes are born.
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