Teams look past Terraform when its Business Source License worries legal, when per-resource billing on HCP Terraform becomes hard to forecast, or when they want a general-purpose language instead of HCL. Most go to OpenTofu for the same workflow under an open license, to Scalr or Spacelift for hosted runs, and to Pulumi for real programming languages.
Visibility in our rankings can be paid for. Payment moves a vendor's position within
the shortlist; it never adds a vendor, and it never changes a word of the review or of this page. The first three alternatives
go to challengers, vendors outside the best-known brands in a category, wherever the category has them; the
established names follow in their ranked order. How it works:
placement disclosure · editorial process.
What each alternative does differently
1. OpenTofu
Open source Terraform fork under the Linux Foundation · United States
The closest like-for-like move. OpenTofu is a fork under Linux Foundation stewardship, licensed MPL 2.0, and describes itself as a drop-in replacement. It reads existing state files up to Terraform 1.5.x and uses the same providers. It has no hosted service of its own, so remote runs come from another platform.
Switch from Terraform if the license is the problem and you want the same workflow with minimal code change.
Pricing: Free and open source; hosted runs, state and policy come from third-party platforms that support it. (open source)
Full review: #1 of 12 in our ranking ·
Visit OpenTofu →
2. Scalr
Per-run hosted platform positioned as a Terraform Cloud replacement · United States
Publishes a migration guide for leaving Terraform Cloud, with a script for moving workspaces, and runs Terraform, OpenTofu and Terragrunt. It lets you pick the state backend and supports Atlantis-style pull request workflows, which HCP does not. Billing counts runs, not resources, and users are free.
Switch from Terraform if you want hosted runs but resource-based billing is the reason you are leaving.
Pricing: Free up to 50 runs a month; Business at $0.99 per run with volume discounts ($99 for 100 runs); Enterprise by quote from 20,000 runs a year. (free plan)
Full review: #6 of 12 in our ranking ·
Visit Scalr →
3. Spacelift
Hosted run platform for several IaC engines · United States
A management platform that treats OpenTofu as its own vendor type, with separate stacks, and also orchestrates Pulumi, CloudFormation and Kubernetes next to Terraform. Policies, blueprints and private workers are plan features. Higher tiers are quoted by sales, and the free plan has no time limit.
Switch from Terraform if you run several IaC tools and want one control plane with policy checks around them.
Pricing: Always-free plan for small teams; Starter+, Business, Enterprise and Enterprise+ are quote-only, with unlimited users and private workers counted per plan. (free plan)
Full review: #3 of 12 in our ranking ·
Visit Spacelift →
4. env0
Self-service infrastructure platform with governance and cost controls · United States
A hosted platform built around environments, with templates for Terraform, OpenTofu and Terragrunt. The free tier allows 250 runs and 30 active environments a month with unlimited users, and paid plans are priced per successful apply or per environment. Self-service environments and governance are the selling point, not a new language.
Switch from Terraform if you want self-service environments for developers and a free tier before you commit.
Pricing: Free tier of 250 runs a month and 30 active environments; Cloud Navigator and Cloud Pilot are custom priced per successful apply or environment. (free plan)
Full review: #7 of 12 in our ranking ·
Visit env0 →
5. Pulumi
Infrastructure as code in general-purpose programming languages · United States
Replaces HCL with TypeScript, Python, Go, .NET, Java or YAML, and can run Terraform HCL and reference .tfstate files. The pulumi convert command translates HCL, and the CLI can import resources from a state file. State sits in Pulumi Cloud or a backend you run. Expect a rewrite, not a switch.
Switch from Terraform if your engineers would rather write infrastructure in a general-purpose language than HCL.
Pricing: Free for one user; Essentials $40 per month (up to 500 managed resources), Pro $400 (2,000), Enterprise $2,000 (4,750), with hourly resource rates on top. (free plan)
Full review: #2 of 12 in our ranking ·
Visit Pulumi →
6. Terragrunt
Orchestration wrapper for OpenTofu and Terraform · United States
Not a replacement for the engine. Terragrunt wraps OpenTofu or Terraform to split a large estate into units with their own state, and adds hooks and generated configuration. It is open source, with a free Terragrunt-native pipeline for up to 25 units. You still need an engine underneath.
Switch from Terraform if your pain is a sprawling monorepo of stacks, not the engine or the license.
Pricing: Open source tool; a Terragrunt-native CI/CD pipeline is free for up to 25 infrastructure units; Gruntwork plans and Terragrunt Scale are quote-based. (open source)
Full review: #5 of 12 in our ranking ·
Visit Terragrunt →
7. Crossplane
Kubernetes control plane framework for cloud resources · International (open-source project)
A different model: Kubernetes control planes where you define your own APIs, and Crossplane keeps resources in the desired state and corrects drift. Compositions can be written with functions in Go or Python. There is no plan and apply cycle in the Terraform sense, and it assumes a cluster to host it.
Switch from Terraform if you already run Kubernetes and want infrastructure managed as continuously reconciled APIs.
Pricing: Open source with no license fee; commercial platform and support come from Upbound on quote. (open source)
Full review: #11 of 12 in our ranking ·
Visit Crossplane →
8. AWS CloudFormation
AWS's own template-based provisioning service · United States
AWS only, with AWS-managed state, so there is no state file to host. Resources already created by hand can be brought in with resource import or the IaC generator. Third-party resource types exist, but the model suits teams that live inside one cloud. Multi-cloud estates stay on another tool.
Switch from Terraform if you build only on AWS and want the provider to hold the state for you.
Pricing: No additional charge for AWS and Alexa resource types; third-party extensions cost $0.0009 per handler operation with 1,000 free operations a month per account. (free plan)
Full review: #9 of 12 in our ranking ·
Visit AWS CloudFormation →
9. Azure Bicep
Declarative language for deploying Azure resources · United States
A domain-specific language that deploys Azure resources only, with Azure storing state, and it is free and open source. Microsoft support covers it. A decompile command turns existing ARM templates into Bicep. If your estate includes AWS, Kubernetes or SaaS providers, Bicep leaves those to another tool.
Switch from Terraform if you build almost entirely on Azure and want the vendor's own language and state handling.
Pricing: Free and open source; you pay only for the Azure resources you deploy, and Microsoft Support covers it. (open source)
Full review: #10 of 12 in our ranking ·
Visit Azure Bicep →
10. Ansible
Open source IT automation engine with a Red Hat enterprise edition · United States
Procedural automation more than state-tracked provisioning: playbooks provision, configure and deploy, with no state file of its own. A community module can call Terraform from a playbook, which needs the terraform binary on the host. The engine is free, and Red Hat sells the platform by subscription.
Switch from Terraform if configuration and orchestration of servers matter more to you than tracked cloud resources.
Pricing: The Ansible engine is free and open source; Red Hat Ansible Automation Platform is sold as Standard (business hours) or Premium (24x7) subscriptions on quote. (open source)
Full review: #8 of 12 in our ranking ·
Visit Ansible →
11. Puppet
Agent-based configuration management and compliance enforcement · United States
A configuration management product that enforces the desired state of machines through agents, not a cloud provisioning tool. Puppet Core is free below 25 nodes and the commercial editions are quoted. It manages what runs on servers, so it complements Terraform more than it replaces it.
Switch from Terraform if your real need is continuous enforcement of server configuration across a fleet of nodes.
Pricing: Puppet Core is free under 25 nodes; Commercial (25+ nodes), Enterprise and Enterprise Advanced are custom priced. (free plan)
Full review: #12 of 12 in our ranking ·
Visit Puppet →
Questions and answers
Can I take my state file out of HCP Terraform?
Yes. The terraform state pull command downloads the state and prints it in raw form. You can also migrate state into HCP, using the CLI, the API or tf-migrate. The raw file keeps resource addresses, so OpenTofu can read it, but variables and teams stay behind.
Will OpenTofu read my Terraform state?
Yes, up to Terraform 1.5.x. OpenTofu states that it works with existing state files up to those created with Terraform 1.5.x. If you ran newer Terraform versions, test first with a copy of the state and a plan, because the project does not promise parity beyond that point.
Do my providers keep working after I leave Terraform?
Mostly. OpenTofu says it uses current Terraform providers but a separate registry, and its site lists more than 3,900 providers. Terragrunt and Scalr work with OpenTofu as well as Terraform, so wrappers and hosted runs usually move without changes.
Does the Business Source License affect my own company?
Only if you offer Terraform to third parties on a hosted or embedded basis that competes with IBM's paid versions. The license says internal use within your organization is not a competitive offering. Consultants and tooling vendors should read the grant carefully or ask licensing@hashicorp.com.
What happens to the license of a Terraform version over time?
Each version converts to MPL 2.0 four years after its release, or the fourth anniversary of first distribution, whichever comes first. The license applies separately to each version, so a new release starts its own four-year period under the Business Source License.
Can I move to a hosted platform and keep my code?
Yes. Scalr, Spacelift and env0 run Terraform and OpenTofu code as it is, and Scalr documents a migration from Terraform Cloud with a script for workspaces. You change the backend settings and rebuild access, variables and policies. Tools that need another language, such as Pulumi, require a rewrite.
