On October 30, 2020, the splinter group Better Terraform officially launched OpenTF, a fork of the popular cloud infrastructure automation tool HashiCorp Terraform. OpenTF is a free and open source version of Terraform, giving its users greater control over the deployment and management of their cloud resources.
OpenTF was created by a group of developers led by Erika Heidi, a long-time Terraform contributor. The formation of Better Terraform and the launch of OpenTF follows months of frustration from contributors to Terraform who wanted more open source participation and control over the project.
OpenTF extends Terraform’s official capabilities, including improved testing and documentation. It also adds an “Open Contribution” process which allows any user to make code changes, bypassing the Terraform maintainers. This new process should allow developers a significantly faster turn around time when making changes.
The additional openness that OpenTF provides will be welcomed by many users of Terraform. A free and open source version of Terraform will give users the confidence that any code changes they make to their infrastructure automation won’t be subject to costly license fees or maintenance approvals. This could make a huge difference, especially to small businesses and cloud users who couldn’t otherwise afford to use Terraform.
OpenTF will not be an official HashiCorp product, however the company has expressed support for the Better Terraform initiative and has collaborated with the team in providing the code needed to create OpenTF.
At the time of launch, OpenTF is still in its early stages and many features are still in development. However, the Better Terraform team promises to continue to fix bugs and improve features with the help of its growing community.
The launch of OpenTF is a big step forward for cloud developers and users who have long sought greater freedom and control over Terraform. OpenTF should provide users with an affordable alternative to Terraform, allowing for faster and less expensive deployment and management of their cloud resources.