head to head · open source
authelia vs webauthn-ruby
authelia has 29,041 GitHub stars, 1,490 forks, 137 open issues and last shipped today. webauthn-ruby has 774 stars, 70 forks, 12 open issues and last shipped 19 days ago. authelia leads on adoption by 3,652% (29,041 vs 774 stars). authelia is written in Go under Apache-2.0; webauthn-ruby is written in Ruby under MIT. authelia has attracted 5% as many forks as stars, webauthn-ruby 9%. 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, passkeys), 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 | webauthn-ruby | |
|---|---|---|
| GitHub stars | ★ 29K | ★ 774 |
| License | Apache-2.0 | MIT |
| Written in | Go | Ruby |
| Last push | 2026-09-22 | 2026-09-03 |
| Forks | ⑂ 1.5K | ⑂ 70 |
| 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 webauthn-ruby if
- You want the webauthn-ruby feature set and don't need the biggest community
- You prefer the MIT license terms
- Your stack matches Ruby
- You evaluated both and webauthn-ruby 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 webauthn-ruby
webauthn ruby is an MIT licensed Ruby gem that turns a Ruby or Rails web server into a conformant WebAuthn Relying Party, handling the server side registration and authentication of public key credentials — passkeys — for teams that want passwordless or two factor login without implementing the W3C specification themselves.
read the full webauthn-ruby overview →
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Frequently asked questions
Is authelia or webauthn-ruby more popular?
authelia has 29,041 GitHub stars and webauthn-ruby has 774. authelia has the larger community by that measure.
Are authelia and webauthn-ruby free?
Both are open source. authelia is licensed under Apache-2.0 and webauthn-ruby under MIT. Neither carries a licence fee.
What is the difference between authelia and webauthn-ruby?
authelia is written in Go and webauthn-ruby in Ruby. 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 webauthn-ruby?
Choose authelia if you want the larger community (29,041 stars) or its Apache-2.0 licence terms. Choose webauthn-ruby if its feature set, stack or MIT licence fits better. Both are self-hostable.