head to head · open source
portainer vs OpenTofu
portainer has 38,526 GitHub stars, 2,907 forks, 757 open issues and last shipped 2 days ago. OpenTofu has 30,232 stars, 1,371 forks, 320 open issues and last shipped 2 days ago. portainer leads on adoption by 27% (38,526 vs 30,232 stars). portainer is written in TypeScript under Zlib; OpenTofu is written in Go under MPL-2.0. portainer has attracted 8% as many forks as stars, OpenTofu 5%. 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
| portainer | OpenTofu | |
|---|---|---|
| GitHub stars | ★ 39K | ★ 30K |
| License | Zlib | MPL-2.0 |
| Written in | TypeScript | Go |
| Last push | 2026-09-18 | 2026-09-18 |
| Forks | ⑂ 2.9K | ⑂ 1.4K |
| Self-hosting | Yes | Yes |
| Data ownership | Your server | Your server |
pick portainer if
- You weight community size — 39K stars and counting
- You want the Zlib license terms
- Your stack matches TypeScript
- You value the larger contributor base for long-term maintenance
pick OpenTofu if
- You want the OpenTofu feature set and don't need the biggest community
- You prefer the MPL-2.0 license terms
- Your stack matches Go
- You evaluated both and OpenTofu fits your workflow better
About portainer
Portainer Community Edition is a free, lightweight container management UI for Docker, Swarm, Podman, Kubernetes, and ACI environments, distributed under the zlib licence and aimed at homelab operators, hobbyists, students, and anyone experimenting with containers on their own hardware.
read the full portainer overview →
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 →
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Frequently asked questions
Is portainer or OpenTofu more popular?
portainer has 38,526 GitHub stars and OpenTofu has 30,232. portainer has the larger community by that measure.
Are portainer and OpenTofu free?
Both are open source. portainer is licensed under Zlib and OpenTofu under MPL-2.0. Neither carries a licence fee.
What is the difference between portainer and OpenTofu?
portainer is written in TypeScript and OpenTofu in Go. The practical differences are community size, licence terms, language stack and release cadence — all compared in the table above.
Which should I choose, portainer or OpenTofu?
Choose portainer if you want the larger community (38,526 stars) or its Zlib licence terms. Choose OpenTofu if its feature set, stack or MPL-2.0 licence fits better. Both are self-hostable.