head to head · open source
authelia vs pwd.sh
authelia has 29,580 GitHub stars, 1,537 forks, 137 open issues and last shipped yesterday. pwd.sh has 1,564 stars, 132 forks, 0 open issues and last shipped 20 days ago. authelia leads on adoption by 1,791% (29,580 vs 1,564 stars). authelia is written in Go under Apache-2.0; pwd.sh is written in Shell under MIT. authelia has attracted 5% as many forks as stars, pwd.sh 8%. authelia was the more recently maintained of the two, and both are self-hostable with no licence fee.
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 | pwd.sh | |
|---|---|---|
| GitHub stars | ★ 30K | ★ 1.6K |
| License | Apache-2.0 | MIT |
| Written in | Go | Shell |
| Last push | 2026-11-07 | 2026-10-19 |
| Forks | ⑂ 1.5K | ⑂ 132 |
| Self-hosting | Yes | Yes |
| Data ownership | Your server | Your server |
pick authelia if
- You weight community size — 30K 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 pwd.sh if
- You want the pwd.sh feature set and don't need the biggest community
- You prefer the MIT license terms
- Your stack matches Shell
- You evaluated both and pwd.sh fits your workflow better
About authelia
<img alt="SLSA 3" src="
read the full authelia overview →
About pwd.sh
pwd.sh is a Bash script to manage text secrets, such as passwords, using GnuPG. Each secret is saved to a randomly named file in a directory. An encrypted index maps usernames to secrets contained in files. Both the index and files can be decrypted directly with GnuPG without pwd.sh. Install Download from Releases, or to use the latest version, clone the repository: Or download the script directly: Use Run the script interactively using ./pwd.sh or symlink to a directory in PATH : w write (create) a secret r read (access) a secret l list secret names and paths s generate a random secret u generate a random…
read the full pwd.sh overview →
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Frequently asked questions
Is authelia or pwd.sh more popular?
authelia has 29,580 GitHub stars and pwd.sh has 1,564. authelia has the larger community by that measure.
Are authelia and pwd.sh free?
Both are open source. authelia is licensed under Apache-2.0 and pwd.sh under MIT. Neither carries a licence fee.
What is the difference between authelia and pwd.sh?
authelia is written in Go and pwd.sh in Shell. 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 pwd.sh?
Choose authelia if you want the larger community (29,580 stars) or its Apache-2.0 licence terms. Choose pwd.sh if its feature set, stack or MIT licence fits better. Both are self-hostable.