Get to know OpenTofu: Migration and licensing considerations for Azure Terraform users

I think a lot about template technology. It’s how I help my clients with much of their IT setup in Azure. Right now, lots of companies are moving away from Terraform because of concerns about licensing with Terraform Enterprise. A new open-source version of Terraform, called OpenTofu, is taking the Azure community by storm. What do you need to know about the latest migration and licensing issues?

For those that work with templates, HashiCorp is a familiar name. They own Terraform and traditionally let people use it for free. They have a personal and pro version and a community developer version. Like Bicep and ARM templates, Terraform templates are just a bunch of JSON files. HashiCorp went public and figured out how to monetize their Terraform program by issuing a license. What I think happened is they started charging for the enterprise license that gives you more features than the community or personal version, which upset a lot of people because a lot of companies were locked in to using Terraform. Now I think IBM is rumored to be purchasing either Terraform or HashiCorp itself, and if true, it could change the licensing again.

A group of ex-HashiCorp employees forked a copy of Terraform and called it OpenTofu. This open-source version is attracting a lot of attention, but not everybody’s invested in it yet. Because there are so many different alternatives, many people are moving to Azure Bicep.