I'm curious about how OpenTofu is stacking up against Terraform. Has it established itself as a viable alternative yet? I don't currently use Infrastructure as Code (IaC) in my deployments, but I'd love to know how the situation has evolved over time.
5 Answers
Using 'for_each' on providers is a game changer! It really helps keep your code clean and eliminates redundancy. Overall, OpenTofu allows for a lot more dynamic configurations than Terraform ever did, which is something the community has been asking for.
Absolutely! Also, derivatives for backend configurations using variables make it way better. It’s like OpenTofu is doing what everyone wanted for years, but Terraform wasn’t aligning with those requests.
One major advantage of OpenTofu is its ability to encrypt local state files, which is really useful, especially for bootstrap environments. This means you can keep your backend files safer without needing to rely on cloud storage.
If it can encrypt state files, does that mean I can keep my backend in source control instead of a bucket? That would make my IaC completely self-contained!
Encrypting state files doesn't make much sense for public cloud use cases. If you don't trust your provider, it's better to use Customer Managed Keys (CMK).
In my company, we’re still heavily using Terraform, but I’ve started testing OpenTofu and I'm a big fan of 'target files'. It simplifies targeted applies, which is a hassle with CI pipelines.
That sounds awesome! How do you structure your release pipelines with those target files?
I started using OpenTofu when CDKTF was discontinued and I really like it. It makes the transition smoother since it has features like state encryption and 'for_each', plus migrating is pretty straightforward without needing major rewrites.
We’re still on Terraform but switching seems inevitable eventually, especially since costs are rising with Terraform. OpenTofu is definitely worth considering, especially for organizations with several repositories of .tf code.
Can you clarify what you mean by 'for_each' on providers with a quick example? I'm trying to wrap my head around it.