head to head · open source
authelia vs dex
authelia has 29,482 GitHub stars, 1,531 forks, 137 open issues and last shipped yesterday. dex has 11,227 stars, 2,015 forks, 547 open issues and last shipped yesterday. authelia leads on adoption by 163% (29,482 vs 11,227 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%. dex 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.
← all 20902 open source comparisons
Side by side
| authelia | dex | |
|---|---|---|
| GitHub stars | ★ 29K | ★ 11K |
| License | Apache-2.0 | Apache-2.0 |
| Written in | Go | Go |
| Last push | 2026-11-02 | 2026-11-02 |
| 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
<img alt="SLSA 3" src="
read the full authelia overview →
About dex
dex A federated OpenID Connect provider Dex is an identity service that uses [OpenID Connect][openid connect] to drive authentication for other apps. Dex acts as a portal to other identity providers through "connectors." This lets dex defer authentication to LDAP servers, SAML providers, or established identity providers like GitHub, Google, and Active Directory. Clients write their authentication logic once to talk to dex, then dex handles the protocols for a given backend. ID Tokens ID Tokens are an OAuth2 extension introduced by OpenID Connect and dex's primary feature. ID Tokens are [JSON Web Tokens][jwt io]…
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 dex more popular?
authelia has 29,482 GitHub stars and dex has 11,227. 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 (29,482 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.