---
id: openstacksdk
version: "4.18.0"
license: Apache-2.0
license_treatment: permissive
maintenance: active
---

# openstacksdk — An SDK for building applications to work with OpenStack

License: permissive · Maintenance: active · Downloads: 1.5M/mo

## What it is and what it does

openstacksdk is a Python client library designed to simplify interactions with OpenStack clouds. It provides a multi-layered architecture: a high-level cloud abstraction layer for common operations, a service-specific proxy layer for detailed control, a resource layer for CRUD operations, and a raw HTTP layer for unsupported APIs. The library handles authentication via clouds.yaml files or environment variables and aims to work consistently across different OpenStack deployments regardless of their configuration.

Developers use openstacksdk to automate cloud infrastructure tasks—launching servers, managing images, provisioning storage, and orchestrating networking resources. The abstraction layers let you choose your level of control: write portable applications against the cloud layer, or drop down to service-specific proxies for fine-grained operations. It depends on keystoneauth1 for authentication, cryptography for secure operations, and several utility libraries for configuration and caching.

Use it for:

- Automate server provisioning and lifecycle management across OpenStack clouds from a single codebase.
- Build infrastructure-as-code tools that work with any OpenStack deployment without provider-specific logic.
- Manage images, flavors, networks, and block storage volumes programmatically.
- Integrate OpenStack cloud operations into CI/CD pipelines or orchestration frameworks.
- Query and monitor cloud resources across multiple OpenStack regions or projects.

## Worth the install?

AI-flagged interpretation of the facts above — verify before relying.

openstacksdk is a client library for interacting with OpenStack clouds, providing a layered API from high-level cloud operations down to raw HTTP requests for managing compute, storage, networking, and other OpenStack services.

Yes. openstacksdk is actively maintained, has low install friction, carries no known vulnerabilities, and is licensed permissively. Install it if you need to interact with OpenStack clouds from Python. The layered API design means you can start with simple cloud operations and drop down to service-specific or raw HTTP calls when needed. The only gotcha is the Python 3.11 or later requirement and the need for proper cloud configuration.

## Install

pip install openstacksdk
uv add openstacksdk
poetry add openstacksdk

## Installing openstacksdk

Before you install: Low install friction with a pure-Python wheel distribution. Actively maintained with a recent release. Depends on 12 runtime packages including cryptography, keystoneauth1, and PyYAML—all well-established libraries.

License in practice: Licensed under Apache-2.0 (permissive), allowing use in commercial and proprietary projects with minimal restrictions.

Quickstart:

pip install openstacksdk

import openstacksdk

conn = openstacksdk.connect(cloud='mordred')
for server in conn.list_servers():
    print(server.to_dict())

Requires Python 3.11 or later. Needs a clouds.yaml configuration file or environment variables to authenticate with an OpenStack cloud.

Verify before relying:

- Whether all supported OpenStack services have complete API coverage or only partial support.
- Performance characteristics and scalability limits for large-scale cloud operations.
- Compatibility with specific OpenStack versions or distributions beyond the general OpenStack ecosystem.

## Package facts

- License: Apache-2.0 (permissive)
- Python support: supports_current
- Install friction: low
- Maintenance: active
- Downloads: 1.5M/month (top 5,000 on PyPI)
- Known vulnerabilities: none known

## Tags

openstack cloud client library, openstack api sdk, openstack compute management, openstack infrastructure automation, openstack cloud abstraction layer, openstack service integration, openstack resource provisioning, openstack, cloud-infrastructure, api-client

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