head to head · open source
authelia vs Permify
authelia has 29,496 GitHub stars, 1,532 forks, 137 open issues and last shipped today. Permify has 5,968 stars, 330 forks, 75 open issues and last shipped yesterday. authelia leads on adoption by 394% (29,496 vs 5,968 stars). authelia is written in Go under Apache-2.0; Permify is written in Go under AGPL-3.0. authelia has attracted 5% as many forks as stars, Permify 6%. authelia was the more recently maintained of the two, and both are self-hostable with no licence fee. The two share 2 topic tags (golang, 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 | Permify | |
|---|---|---|
| GitHub stars | ★ 29K | ★ 6.0K |
| License | Apache-2.0 | AGPL-3.0 |
| Written in | Go | Go |
| Last push | 2026-11-04 | 2026-11-03 |
| Forks | ⑂ 1.5K | ⑂ 330 |
| 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 Permify if
- You want the Permify feature set and don't need the biggest community
- You prefer the AGPL-3.0 license terms
- Your stack matches Go
- You evaluated both and Permify fits your workflow better
About authelia
<img alt="SLSA 3" src="
read the full authelia overview →
About Permify
Exciting news: Permify has been acquired by FusionAuth! 🎉 Permify Blog Post Official Press Release FusionAuth Blog Post Permify Open Source Fine Grained Authorization Implement fine grained, scalable and extensible access controls within minutes to days instead of months. Inspired by Google’s consistent, global authorization system, Zanzibar What is Permify? Permify is an open source authorization service for easily building and managing fine grained, scalable, and extensible access controls for your applications and services. Inspired by Google’s consistent, global authorization system, Google Zanzibar Our…
read the full Permify overview →
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Frequently asked questions
Is authelia or Permify more popular?
authelia has 29,496 GitHub stars and Permify has 5,968. authelia has the larger community by that measure.
Are authelia and Permify free?
Both are open source. authelia is licensed under Apache-2.0 and Permify under AGPL-3.0. Neither carries a licence fee.
What is the difference between authelia and Permify?
authelia is written in Go and Permify 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 Permify?
Choose authelia if you want the larger community (29,496 stars) or its Apache-2.0 licence terms. Choose Permify if its feature set, stack or AGPL-3.0 licence fits better. Both are self-hostable.