Terraform's BSL license shift and HCL complexity have developers looking elsewhere. We compare Pulumi, AWS CDK, OpenTofu, Encore, and Crossplane — covering drop-in replacements, developer-first IaC, infrastructure from code, and Kubernetes-native options. Note: affiliate links are available for Pulumi and AWS CDK; OpenTofu, Encore, and Crossplane are open-source/free tools included as recommendations without affiliate relationships.
hashicorp's license shift from MPL to BSL in 2023 sent ripples through the infrastructure world. for many teams, terraform was the default — but the new license, combined with the friction of HCL and the infamous state file, has teams actively looking for alternatives.
the good news? the ecosystem is richer than ever. here's what's out there, grouped by philosophy.
if your team knows terraform and just wants to keep working without the BSL headache, opentofu is the answer. it's a fork of terraform 1.5.x, maintained by the linux foundation, and it's designed to be a direct drop-in.1
opentofu doesn't solve the HCL or state file complaints, but it solves the licensing problem cleanly.
if your pain point is HCL — if you've ever wished you could just write TypeScript or Python to define your infrastructure — these are your tools.
pulumi lets you use real programming languages (TypeScript, Python, Go, C#, Java) to define infrastructure.1 you get loops, conditionals, functions, and your IDE's autocomplete. state is managed via the pulumi cloud or self-hosted backends.
aws cloud development kit (cdk) is aws's own answer to infrastructure as code with real languages. it uses constructs — high-level building blocks that encapsulate best practices — so you can define a load-balanced Fargate service in a few lines.1
cdk is the gold standard if you're all-in on AWS. for multi-cloud, pulumi is the better bet.
encore takes a fundamentally different approach. instead of writing infrastructure code, you write application code, and encore infers the infrastructure from it.1 this is called "infrastructure from code" (IfC).
define an API endpoint in Go or TypeScript, and encore automatically provisions the API gateway, service, and database. no state files, no separate infra repos.
encore is ideal for startups and small teams who want to move fast without a dedicated platform team. it's less suited for complex, multi-cloud enterprise setups with existing infrastructure.
crossplane flips the model: instead of managing infrastructure through a CLI tool, you manage it through kubernetes custom resources.1 your infrastructure becomes Kubernetes objects, managed via GitOps.
crossplane is powerful for platform teams already running Kubernetes who want a unified control plane for both applications and infrastructure.
| dimension | pulumi | aws cdk | opentofu | encore | crossplane |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| language | TS, Python, Go, C#, Java | TS, Python, Java, C#, Go | HCL | Go, TS | YAML (k8s CRDs) |
| state management | pulumi cloud / self-hosted | CloudFormation | remote state backends | none (inferred) | etcd (k8s) |
| cloud support | multi-cloud (100+) | AWS only | multi-cloud | AWS, GCP | multi-cloud |
| learning curve | moderate | moderate | low (if you know TF) | low (app devs) | steep (k8s req.) |
ask yourself one question: what's your primary pain point with terraform?
| if your pain point is... | go with... |
|---|---|
| the BSL license / vendor lock-in | opentofu |
| writing HCL / wanting real languages | pulumi (multi-cloud) or aws cdk (AWS-only) |
| managing state files / infra complexity | encore (infrastructure from code) |
| kubernetes-native workflows / GitOps | crossplane |
1 encore.dev — Best Terraform Alternatives in 2026: Complete Comparison Guide 2 dev.to — 7 Best Terraform Cloud Alternatives for 2025
disclosure: some links on this page are affiliate links. if you purchase through them, we may earn a commission at no extra cost to you. opentofu, encore, and crossplane are open-source or free tools — no affiliate relationships exist for those.
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