head to head · open source
OpenTofu vs jenkins
OpenTofu has 30,703 GitHub stars, 1,414 forks, 320 open issues and last shipped yesterday. jenkins has 26,719 stars, 9,819 forks, 3,610 open issues and last shipped yesterday. OpenTofu leads on adoption by 15% (30,703 vs 26,719 stars). OpenTofu is written in Go under MPL-2.0; jenkins is written in Java under MIT. OpenTofu has attracted 5% as many forks as stars, jenkins 37%. OpenTofu was the more recently maintained of the two, and both are self-hostable with no licence fee.
Two open source projects, one decision. Both are free and self-hostable — the differences are community size, license terms, language stack and release pace.
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Side by side
| OpenTofu | jenkins | |
|---|---|---|
| GitHub stars | ★ 31K | ★ 27K |
| License | MPL-2.0 | MIT |
| Written in | Go | Java |
| Last push | 2026-11-02 | 2026-11-02 |
| Forks | ⑂ 1.4K | ⑂ 9.8K |
| Self-hosting | Yes | Yes |
| Data ownership | Your server | Your server |
pick OpenTofu if
- You weight community size — 31K stars and counting
- You want the MPL-2.0 license terms
- Your stack matches Go
- You value the larger contributor base for long-term maintenance
pick jenkins if
- You want the jenkins feature set and don't need the biggest community
- You prefer the MIT license terms
- Your stack matches Java
- You evaluated both and jenkins fits your workflow better
About OpenTofu
Homepage Slack Get Started OpenTofu is an OSS tool for building, changing, and versioning infrastructure safely and efficiently. OpenTofu can manage existing and popular service providers as well as custom in house solutions. Getting help and contributing Have a question? Post it in GitHub Discussions Open a GitHub issue Join us in the opentofu channel on the CNCF Slack! Want to contribute? Please read the Contribution Guide. Recurring Events Community Meetings on Wednesdays at 12:30 UTC (calendar) Technical Steering Committee Meetings every other Tuesday at 4pm UTC (calendar) [!TIP] For more OpenTofu events…
read the full OpenTofu overview →
About jenkins
Table of Contents About What to Use Jenkins for and When to Use It Downloads Getting Started (Development) Source Contributing to Jenkins News and Website Governance Adopters License About In a nutshell, Jenkins is the leading open source automation server. Built with Java, it provides over 2,000 plugins to support automating virtually anything, so that humans can spend their time doing things machines cannot. What to Use Jenkins for and When to Use It Use Jenkins to automate your development workflow, so you can focus on work that matters most. Jenkins is commonly used for: Building projects Running tests to…
read the full jenkins overview →
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Frequently asked questions
Is OpenTofu or jenkins more popular?
OpenTofu has 30,703 GitHub stars and jenkins has 26,719. OpenTofu has the larger community by that measure.
Are OpenTofu and jenkins free?
Both are open source. OpenTofu is licensed under MPL-2.0 and jenkins under MIT. Neither carries a licence fee.
What is the difference between OpenTofu and jenkins?
OpenTofu is written in Go and jenkins in Java. The practical differences are community size, licence terms, language stack and release cadence — all compared in the table above.
Which should I choose, OpenTofu or jenkins?
Choose OpenTofu if you want the larger community (30,703 stars) or its MPL-2.0 licence terms. Choose jenkins if its feature set, stack or MIT licence fits better. Both are self-hostable.