head to head · open source
OpenTofu vs aws-cdk
OpenTofu has 30,703 GitHub stars, 1,414 forks, 320 open issues and last shipped yesterday. aws-cdk has 12,958 stars, 4,665 forks, 2,863 open issues and last shipped yesterday. OpenTofu leads on adoption by 137% (30,703 vs 12,958 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 | ★ 31K | ★ 13K |
| License | MPL-2.0 | Apache-2.0 |
| Written in | Go | TypeScript |
| Last push | 2026-11-02 | 2026-11-02 |
| Forks | ⑂ 1.4K | ⑂ 4.7K |
| 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 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
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 aws-cdk
AWS Cloud Development Kit (AWS CDK) The AWS Cloud Development Kit (AWS CDK) is an open source software development framework to define cloud infrastructure in code and provision it through AWS CloudFormation. It offers a high level object oriented abstraction to define AWS resources imperatively using the power of modern programming languages. Using the CDK’s library of infrastructure constructs, you can easily encapsulate AWS best practices in your infrastructure definition and share it without worrying about boilerplate logic. The CDK is available in the following languages: JavaScript, TypeScript (Node.js =…
read the full aws-cdk overview →
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Frequently asked questions
Is OpenTofu or aws-cdk more popular?
OpenTofu has 30,703 GitHub stars and aws-cdk has 12,958. 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 (30,703 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.