# Pulumi vs OpenTofu

Canonical: https://inetgeek.com/compare/pulumi-vs-opentofu/

Every value below is read from Pulumi's and OpenTofu's own documentation. See https://inetgeek.com/methodology/ for how.

## At a glance

| Criterion | Pulumi | OpenTofu |
| --- | --- | --- |
| Free tier | Yes | Yes |
| What the free plan includes | One user, IaC state management, unlimited projects and updates, up to 500 workflow minutes, and 5 million Pulumi Neo tokens a month — free forever for individuals and open source. | Everything, with no account. Providers and modules come from the OpenTofu Registry, and the project states an aim of feature parity with Terraform for future releases. |
| Entry paid plan | $40/month for Team, which includes 40 Credits at $1 each and up to 500 resources; beyond that usage is billed on demand at $0.1825 per IaC resource per month. | None. OpenTofu is the tool rather than a platform: there is nothing to buy, no hosted state and no vendor to bill you — which is the reason the other three in this category exist. |
| Pricing model | Per resource under management, converted through a credit: 1 Credit = $1, one IaC resource costs 0.1825 a month and one managed secret 0.50. Workflow minutes are metered separately at $0.01 past 500 free. | Nothing is metered because nothing is sold. Governance rather than price is the pitch: the project is held by the Linux Foundation specifically so a licence change cannot happen to it again. |
| Self-hostable | Supported — Listed as a line item on the plan comparison, not a separate product | Supported |
| SAML single sign-on | Supported — SAML/SSO with RBAC, on Enterprise; SCIM sync on the tier above | Not supported — No account and no directory to federate with; access control is your own CI and state backend |
| Audit logs | Supported — Enterprise tier, above the $40/month Team plan | None, and there cannot be: OpenTofu is a binary you run, with no account, no hosted state and no service to keep a trail of. What a platform sells is partly this. |

## Where they differ

### What the free plan includes

- Pulumi: One user, IaC state management, unlimited projects and updates, up to 500 workflow minutes, and 5 million Pulumi Neo tokens a month — free forever for individuals and open source. ([source](https://www.pulumi.com/pricing/))
- OpenTofu: Everything, with no account. Providers and modules come from the OpenTofu Registry, and the project states an aim of feature parity with Terraform for future releases. ([source](https://opentofu.org/))

### Entry paid plan

- Pulumi: $40/month for Team, which includes 40 Credits at $1 each and up to 500 resources; beyond that usage is billed on demand at $0.1825 per IaC resource per month. ([source](https://www.pulumi.com/pricing/))
- OpenTofu: None. OpenTofu is the tool rather than a platform: there is nothing to buy, no hosted state and no vendor to bill you — which is the reason the other three in this category exist. ([source](https://opentofu.org/))

### Pricing model

- Pulumi: Per resource under management, converted through a credit: 1 Credit = $1, one IaC resource costs 0.1825 a month and one managed secret 0.50. Workflow minutes are metered separately at $0.01 past 500 free. ([source](https://www.pulumi.com/pricing/))
- OpenTofu: Nothing is metered because nothing is sold. Governance rather than price is the pitch: the project is held by the Linux Foundation specifically so a licence change cannot happen to it again. ([source](https://opentofu.org/))

### SAML single sign-on

- Pulumi: Supported — SAML/SSO with RBAC, on Enterprise; SCIM sync on the tier above ([source](https://www.pulumi.com/pricing/))
- OpenTofu: Not supported — No account and no directory to federate with; access control is your own CI and state backend ([source](https://opentofu.org/))

### Audit logs

- Pulumi: Supported — Enterprise tier, above the $40/month Team plan ([source](https://www.pulumi.com/pricing/))
- OpenTofu: None, and there cannot be: OpenTofu is a binary you run, with no account, no hosted state and no service to keep a trail of. What a platform sells is partly this. ([source](https://opentofu.org/))

## Which should you choose?

Pick Pulumi if Infrastructure written in a language you already know, with a managed cloud that is free forever for individuals and open source — one user, unlimited projects and state management at $0.

Pick OpenTofu if Not having a vendor. OpenTofu is a drop-in replacement for Terraform held by the Linux Foundation specifically so a licence change cannot happen to it again — free, self-hosted, with providers and modules from its own registry.

Consider something else: Pulumi — Your estate is large. Pulumi meters resources under management at $0.1825 each a month past the first 500, so the bill tracks how much infrastructure you have rather than how often you change it — Scalr charges per run and explicitly nothing per resource.

Consider something else: OpenTofu — Somebody has to answer for who changed what. There is no account, so there is no audit trail and no SSO — access control is whatever your CI and state backend enforce, which is exactly the gap the other three sell into.

## Questions this comparison answers

**Entry paid plan: Pulumi or OpenTofu?**

Pulumi: $40/month for Team, which includes 40 Credits at $1 each and up to 500 resources; beyond that usage is billed on demand at $0.1825 per IaC resource per month.
OpenTofu: None. OpenTofu is the tool rather than a platform: there is nothing to buy, no hosted state and no vendor to bill you — which is the reason the other three in this category exist.

**Should I choose Pulumi or OpenTofu?**

Pick Pulumi if Infrastructure written in a language you already know, with a managed cloud that is free forever for individuals and open source — one user, unlimited projects and state management at $0.
Pick OpenTofu if Not having a vendor. OpenTofu is a drop-in replacement for Terraform held by the Linux Foundation specifically so a licence change cannot happen to it again — free, self-hosted, with providers and modules from its own registry.