head to head · open source
authelia vs dex
authelia has 29,010 GitHub stars, 1,485 forks, 137 open issues and last shipped yesterday. dex has 11,097 stars, 1,981 forks, 547 open issues and last shipped yesterday. authelia leads on adoption by 161% (29,010 vs 11,097 stars). authelia is written in Go under Apache-2.0; dex is written in Go under Apache-2.0. authelia has attracted 5% as many forks as stars, dex 18%. authelia was the more recently maintained of the two, and both are self-hostable with no licence fee. The two share 1 topic tag (kubernetes), 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.
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Side by side
| authelia | dex | |
|---|---|---|
| GitHub stars | ★ 29K | ★ 11K |
| License | Apache-2.0 | Apache-2.0 |
| Written in | Go | Go |
| Last push | 2026-09-18 | 2026-09-18 |
| Forks | ⑂ 1.5K | ⑂ 2.0K |
| 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 dex if
- You want the dex 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 dex fits your workflow better
About authelia
Authelia is an open source authentication and authorization server written in Go that provides single sign on and multi factor authentication for web applications through a web portal, aimed at self hosters and platform teams who need to protect services sitting behind a reverse proxy.
read the full authelia overview →
About dex
Dex is an OpenID Connect (OIDC) and OAuth 2.0 identity provider written in Go and released under the Apache 2.0 licence, built for teams that want one authentication endpoint in front of many upstream identity sources instead of one integration per application.
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Frequently asked questions
Is authelia or dex more popular?
authelia has 29,010 GitHub stars and dex has 11,097. authelia has the larger community by that measure.
Are authelia and dex free?
Both are open source. authelia is licensed under Apache-2.0 and dex under Apache-2.0. Neither carries a licence fee.
What is the difference between authelia and dex?
authelia is written in Go and dex 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 dex?
Choose authelia if you want the larger community (29,010 stars) or its Apache-2.0 licence terms. Choose dex if its feature set, stack or Apache-2.0 licence fits better. Both are self-hostable.