head to head · open source
OpenTofu vs jenkins
OpenTofu has 30,204 GitHub stars, 1,367 forks, 320 open issues and last shipped yesterday. jenkins has 26,556 stars, 9,835 forks, 3,610 open issues and last shipped yesterday. OpenTofu leads on adoption by 14% (30,204 vs 26,556 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%. jenkins 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 | ★ 30K | ★ 27K |
| License | MPL-2.0 | MIT |
| Written in | Go | Java |
| Last push | 2026-09-17 | 2026-09-17 |
| Forks | ⑂ 1.4K | ⑂ 9.8K |
| 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 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
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 jenkins
Jenkins is an open source automation server built with Java and released under the MIT license. It lives in the continuous integration and continuous delivery ecosystem, where it has served as a central automation hub for roughly sixteen years. The project is developed in the open on GitHub, where it has accumulated 26,546 stars and 9,833 forks, and it is distributed through the official jenkins.io website alongside documentation, plugin listings, and release notes. Two release lines are maintained: a weekly line that carries all new features, improvements, and bug fixes, and a Long Term Support line that receive…
read the full jenkins overview →
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Frequently asked questions
Is OpenTofu or jenkins more popular?
OpenTofu has 30,204 GitHub stars and jenkins has 26,556. 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 (30,204 stars) or its MPL-2.0 licence terms. Choose jenkins if its feature set, stack or MIT licence fits better. Both are self-hostable.