head to head · open source
OpenTofu vs aws-cdk
OpenTofu has 30,204 GitHub stars, 1,367 forks, 320 open issues and last shipped yesterday. aws-cdk has 12,899 stars, 4,631 forks, 2,863 open issues and last shipped yesterday. OpenTofu leads on adoption by 134% (30,204 vs 12,899 stars). OpenTofu is written in Go under MPL-2.0; aws-cdk is written in TypeScript under Apache-2.0. OpenTofu has attracted 5% as many forks as stars, aws-cdk 36%. aws-cdk 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 | aws-cdk | |
|---|---|---|
| GitHub stars | ★ 30K | ★ 13K |
| License | MPL-2.0 | Apache-2.0 |
| Written in | Go | TypeScript |
| Last push | 2026-09-17 | 2026-09-17 |
| Forks | ⑂ 1.4K | ⑂ 4.6K |
| Self-hosting | Yes | Yes |
| Data ownership | Your server | Your server |
pick OpenTofu if
- You weight community size — 30K 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 aws-cdk if
- You want the aws-cdk feature set and don't need the biggest community
- You prefer the Apache-2.0 license terms
- Your stack matches TypeScript
- You evaluated both and aws-cdk fits your workflow better
About OpenTofu
OpenTofu is an open source infrastructure as code (IaC) tool that enables users to define and manage cloud and on premises infrastructure using declarative configuration files. It lives in the cloud infrastructure management ecosystem and serves as a community driven fork of Terraform, maintaining compatibility with Terraform’s configuration language and provider ecosystem while operating under the MPL 2.0 license.
read the full OpenTofu overview →
About aws-cdk
AWS Cloud Development Kit (AWS CDK) is an open source software development framework for defining cloud infrastructure in code and provisioning it through AWS CloudFormation. It lives in the AWS ecosystem and ships under the Apache 2.0 license, with the core implementation written in TypeScript. The framework offers a high level object oriented abstraction that lets developers define AWS resources imperatively using modern programming languages rather than writing raw CloudFormation templates by hand.
read the full aws-cdk overview →
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Frequently asked questions
Is OpenTofu or aws-cdk more popular?
OpenTofu has 30,204 GitHub stars and aws-cdk has 12,899. OpenTofu has the larger community by that measure.
Are OpenTofu and aws-cdk free?
Both are open source. OpenTofu is licensed under MPL-2.0 and aws-cdk under Apache-2.0. Neither carries a licence fee.
What is the difference between OpenTofu and aws-cdk?
OpenTofu is written in Go and aws-cdk in TypeScript. 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 aws-cdk?
Choose OpenTofu if you want the larger community (30,204 stars) or its MPL-2.0 licence terms. Choose aws-cdk if its feature set, stack or Apache-2.0 licence fits better. Both are self-hostable.