head to head · open source
authelia vs privacyidea
authelia has 29,014 GitHub stars, 1,485 forks, 137 open issues and last shipped today. privacyidea has 1,774 stars, 361 forks, 193 open issues and last shipped today. authelia leads on adoption by 1,536% (29,014 vs 1,774 stars). authelia is written in Go under Apache-2.0; privacyidea is written in Python under AGPL-3.0. authelia has attracted 5% as many forks as stars, privacyidea 20%. authelia was the more recently maintained of the two, and both are self-hostable with no licence fee. The two share 3 topic tags (2fa, authentication, mfa), 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 15422 open source comparisons
Side by side
| authelia | privacyidea | |
|---|---|---|
| GitHub stars | ★ 29K | ★ 1.8K |
| License | Apache-2.0 | AGPL-3.0 |
| Written in | Go | Python |
| Last push | 2026-09-19 | 2026-09-19 |
| Forks | ⑂ 1.5K | ⑂ 361 |
| 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 privacyidea if
- You want the privacyidea feature set and don't need the biggest community
- You prefer the AGPL-3.0 license terms
- Your stack matches Python
- You evaluated both and privacyidea 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 privacyidea
privacyIDEA is an open source, self hosted multi factor authentication platform, written in Python and licensed under AGPL 3.0, for organisations that need to add a second factor to many different applications at once while keeping sensitive user data inside their own infrastructure.
read the full privacyidea 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 privacyidea more popular?
authelia has 29,014 GitHub stars and privacyidea has 1,774. authelia has the larger community by that measure.
Are authelia and privacyidea free?
Both are open source. authelia is licensed under Apache-2.0 and privacyidea under AGPL-3.0. Neither carries a licence fee.
What is the difference between authelia and privacyidea?
authelia is written in Go and privacyidea in Python. 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 privacyidea?
Choose authelia if you want the larger community (29,014 stars) or its Apache-2.0 licence terms. Choose privacyidea if its feature set, stack or AGPL-3.0 licence fits better. Both are self-hostable.