head to head · open source
OpenTofu vs kics
OpenTofu has 30,204 GitHub stars, 1,367 forks, 320 open issues and last shipped yesterday. kics has 2,700 stars, 381 forks, 312 open issues and last shipped yesterday. OpenTofu leads on adoption by 1,019% (30,204 vs 2,700 stars). OpenTofu is written in Go under MPL-2.0; kics is written in Open Policy Agent under Apache-2.0. OpenTofu has attracted 5% as many forks as stars, kics 14%. 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 | kics | |
|---|---|---|
| GitHub stars | ★ 30K | ★ 2.7K |
| License | MPL-2.0 | Apache-2.0 |
| Written in | Go | Open Policy Agent |
| Last push | 2026-09-17 | 2026-09-17 |
| Forks | ⑂ 1.4K | ⑂ 381 |
| 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 kics if
- You want the kics feature set and don't need the biggest community
- You prefer the Apache-2.0 license terms
- Your stack matches Open Policy Agent
- You evaluated both and kics 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 kics
KICS is an open source security scanner for infrastructure as code projects. The project name stands for Keeping Infrastructure as Code Secure, and the repository describes it as a tool for finding security vulnerabilities, compliance issues, and infrastructure misconfigurations early in the development cycle. It is published by Checkmarx under the Apache 2.0 license and is associated with the cloud native, DevSecOps, and application security ecosystems. The repository also lists topics such as infrastructure as code, security, and vulnerability detection.
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Frequently asked questions
Is OpenTofu or kics more popular?
OpenTofu has 30,204 GitHub stars and kics has 2,700. OpenTofu has the larger community by that measure.
Are OpenTofu and kics free?
Both are open source. OpenTofu is licensed under MPL-2.0 and kics under Apache-2.0. Neither carries a licence fee.
What is the difference between OpenTofu and kics?
OpenTofu is written in Go and kics in Open Policy Agent. 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 kics?
Choose OpenTofu if you want the larger community (30,204 stars) or its MPL-2.0 licence terms. Choose kics if its feature set, stack or Apache-2.0 licence fits better. Both are self-hostable.