head to head · open source
authelia vs casbin
authelia has 29,482 GitHub stars, 1,531 forks, 137 open issues and last shipped yesterday. casbin has 20,476 stars, 1,767 forks, 38 open issues and last shipped yesterday. authelia leads on adoption by 44% (29,482 vs 20,476 stars). authelia is written in Go under Apache-2.0; casbin is written in Go under Apache-2.0. authelia has attracted 5% as many forks as stars, casbin 9%. authelia was the more recently maintained of the two, and both are self-hostable with no licence fee. The two share 1 topic tag (authentication), so they are genuine substitutes rather than adjacent tools.
Two open source projects, one decision. Both are free and self-hostable — the differences are community size, license terms, language stack and release pace.
← all 20902 open source comparisons
Side by side
| authelia | casbin | |
|---|---|---|
| GitHub stars | ★ 29K | ★ 20K |
| License | Apache-2.0 | Apache-2.0 |
| Written in | Go | Go |
| Last push | 2026-11-02 | 2026-11-02 |
| Forks | ⑂ 1.5K | ⑂ 1.8K |
| Self-hosting | Yes | Yes |
| Data ownership | Your server | Your server |
pick authelia if
- You weight community size — 29K stars and counting
- You want the Apache-2.0 license terms
- Your stack matches Go
- You value the larger contributor base for long-term maintenance
pick casbin if
- You want the casbin feature set and don't need the biggest community
- You prefer the Apache-2.0 license terms
- Your stack matches Go
- You evaluated both and casbin fits your workflow better
About authelia
<img alt="SLSA 3" src="
read the full authelia overview →
About casbin
Apache Casbin ==== News : still worry about how to write the correct Apache Casbin policy? Apache Casbin online editor is coming to help! Try it at: Apache Casbin is a powerful and efficient open source access control library for Golang projects. It provides support for enforcing authorization based on various access control models. All the languages supported by Apache Casbin: Table of contents Supported models How it works? Features Installation Documentation Online editor Tutorials Get started Policy management Policy persistence Policy consistence between multiple nodes Role manager Benchmarks Examples…
read the full casbin overview →
More in Security & Privacy
Related comparisons
More Identity & Access Management (IAM) projects
Compare either of these against the rest of the Identity & Access Management (IAM) field.
Frequently asked questions
Is authelia or casbin more popular?
authelia has 29,482 GitHub stars and casbin has 20,476. authelia has the larger community by that measure.
Are authelia and casbin free?
Both are open source. authelia is licensed under Apache-2.0 and casbin under Apache-2.0. Neither carries a licence fee.
What is the difference between authelia and casbin?
authelia is written in Go and casbin in Go. The practical differences are community size, licence terms, language stack and release cadence — all compared in the table above.
Which should I choose, authelia or casbin?
Choose authelia if you want the larger community (29,482 stars) or its Apache-2.0 licence terms. Choose casbin if its feature set, stack or Apache-2.0 licence fits better. Both are self-hostable.