head to head · open source
Pulumi vs terratest
Pulumi has 25,840 GitHub stars, 1,478 forks, 2,419 open issues and last shipped yesterday. terratest has 7,989 stars, 1,366 forks, 7 open issues and last shipped 12 days ago. Pulumi leads on adoption by 223% (25,840 vs 7,989 stars). Pulumi is written in Go under Apache-2.0; terratest is written in Go under Apache-2.0. Pulumi has attracted 6% as many forks as stars, terratest 17%. Pulumi was the more recently maintained of the two, and both are self-hostable with no licence fee. The two share 2 topic tags (aws, golang), so they are genuine substitutes rather than adjacent tools.
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
| Pulumi | terratest | |
|---|---|---|
| GitHub stars | ★ 26K | ★ 8.0K |
| License | Apache-2.0 | Apache-2.0 |
| Written in | Go | Go |
| Last push | 2026-11-02 | 2026-10-22 |
| Forks | ⑂ 1.5K | ⑂ 1.4K |
| Self-hosting | Yes | Yes |
| Data ownership | Your server | Your server |
pick Pulumi if
- You weight community size — 26K 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 terratest if
- You want the terratest feature set and don't need the biggest community
- You prefer the Apache-2.0 license terms
- Your stack matches Go
- You evaluated both and terratest fits your workflow better
About Pulumi
Infrastructure as Code for Humans and Agents Pulumi Infrastructure as Code is the easiest way to build and deploy infrastructure, of any architecture and on any cloud, using programming languages that you already know and love. Code and ship infrastructure faster with your favorite languages and tools, and embed IaC anywhere with Automation API. Simply write code in your favorite language and Pulumi automatically provisions and manages your resources on AWS, Azure, Google Cloud Platform, Kubernetes, and 300+ providers using an infrastructure as code approach. Skip the YAML, and use standard language features…
read the full Pulumi overview →
About terratest
Terratest Terratest is a Go library that makes it easier to write automated tests for your infrastructure code. It provides a variety of helper functions and patterns for common infrastructure testing tasks, including: Testing Terraform code Testing Packer templates Testing Docker images Executing commands on servers over SSH Working with AWS APIs Working with Azure APIs Working with GCP APIs Working with Kubernetes APIs Testing Helm Charts Making HTTP requests Running shell commands And much more Install Requires Go 1.26 or later. To lock to a specific release instead of @latest , see Pinning a Terratest…
read the full terratest overview →
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Frequently asked questions
Is Pulumi or terratest more popular?
Pulumi has 25,840 GitHub stars and terratest has 7,989. Pulumi has the larger community by that measure.
Are Pulumi and terratest free?
Both are open source. Pulumi is licensed under Apache-2.0 and terratest under Apache-2.0. Neither carries a licence fee.
What is the difference between Pulumi and terratest?
Pulumi is written in Go and terratest 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, Pulumi or terratest?
Choose Pulumi if you want the larger community (25,840 stars) or its Apache-2.0 licence terms. Choose terratest if its feature set, stack or Apache-2.0 licence fits better. Both are self-hostable.