head to head · open source
trivy vs OpenTofu
trivy has 37,961 GitHub stars, 691 forks, 269 open issues and last shipped yesterday. OpenTofu has 30,204 stars, 1,367 forks, 320 open issues and last shipped yesterday. trivy leads on adoption by 26% (37,961 vs 30,204 stars). trivy is written in Go under Apache-2.0; OpenTofu is written in Go under MPL-2.0. trivy has attracted 2% 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
| trivy | OpenTofu | |
|---|---|---|
| GitHub stars | ★ 38K | ★ 30K |
| License | Apache-2.0 | MPL-2.0 |
| Written in | Go | Go |
| Last push | 2026-09-17 | 2026-09-17 |
| Forks | ⑂ 691 | ⑂ 1.4K |
| Self-hosting | Yes | Yes |
| Data ownership | Your server | Your server |
pick trivy if
- You weight community size — 38K stars and counting
- You want the Apache-2.0 license terms
- Your stack matches Go
- 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 trivy
Trivy is an open source security scanner written in Go and released under the Apache 2.0 license. It is an Aqua Security open source project, hosted at trivy.dev, and it lives in the cloud native and DevSecOps ecosystem alongside container runtimes, Kubernetes clusters, and infrastructure as code tooling. The design separates two ideas: scanners, which describe the classes of security issue Trivy looks for, and targets, which describe where it looks. The README presents the project as a comprehensive and versatile scanner, and the topic list — containers, devsecops, docker, iac, infrastructure as code, kubernetes…
read the full trivy 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 trivy or OpenTofu more popular?
trivy has 37,961 GitHub stars and OpenTofu has 30,204. trivy has the larger community by that measure.
Are trivy and OpenTofu free?
Both are open source. trivy is licensed under Apache-2.0 and OpenTofu under MPL-2.0. Neither carries a licence fee.
What is the difference between trivy and OpenTofu?
trivy is written in Go 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, trivy or OpenTofu?
Choose trivy if you want the larger community (37,961 stars) or its Apache-2.0 licence terms. Choose OpenTofu if its feature set, stack or MPL-2.0 licence fits better. Both are self-hostable.