Living definition
What is OpenTofu (Terraform fork)?
Developer Platforms & BuildCompute & Web Infra
- Kind
- Open-source project
- Released
- 2026-10-22
- Cohort
- open_source_project-001
Description
What it is and what it is for
AI-assisted draft · independently checked
Infrastructure as code means managing computer data center resources, such as servers and virtual machines, through machine-readable definition files instead of configuring them by hand. Setting things up by hand is slow and easy to get wrong, so teams store these files in version control (a system that records every change), review them and deploy them automatically. OpenTofu is an open-source tool that uses such files to build and change infrastructure and keep track of its versions. It started as a fork (a separately developed copy) of Terraform, a tool of the same kind made by the company HashiCorp, and aims to stay compatible with it; its developers say most Terraform code works without changes. The Linux Foundation announced the project on 20 September 2023.
Written from primary sources and reference pages, and checked against them by an independent AI fact-checker. Drafted with AI assistance.
Primary sources
Where this description comes from
A plain-language summary that simplifies technical detail; it does not assess readiness, maturity or adoption.
Release record
Published description
Published on
- Cohort
- open_source_project-001
- Root
- sha256:deaf64e5fc4efec282dd17752a9dbdb2e98fb06fe9861c94329d079ef1e10660
- Entry
- sha256:1a7aae1c80c8b71a809ae11ef31c2542f02fec262d2c134397715cb06afd1b0b