head to head · open source
Authentik vs smart-sso
Authentik has 26,209 GitHub stars, 2,099 forks, 1,074 open issues and last shipped yesterday. smart-sso has 2,300 stars, 1,218 forks, 49 open issues and last shipped 4 days ago. Authentik leads on adoption by 1,040% (26,209 vs 2,300 stars). Authentik is written in Python under a custom or non-standard licence; smart-sso is written in Java under MIT. Authentik has attracted 8% as many forks as stars, smart-sso 53%. Authentik was the more recently maintained of the two, and both are self-hostable with no licence fee. The two share 2 topic tags (authentication, authorization), 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
| Authentik | smart-sso | |
|---|---|---|
| GitHub stars | ★ 26K | ★ 2.3K |
| License | Custom / other | MIT |
| Written in | Python | Java |
| Last push | 2026-11-02 | 2026-10-30 |
| Forks | ⑂ 2.1K | ⑂ 1.2K |
| Self-hosting | Yes | Yes |
| Data ownership | Your server | Your server |
pick Authentik if
- You weight community size — 26K stars and counting
- You want the Custom / other license terms
- Your stack matches Python
- You value the larger contributor base for long-term maintenance
pick smart-sso if
- You want the smart-sso feature set and don't need the biggest community
- You prefer the MIT license terms
- Your stack matches Java
- You evaluated both and smart-sso fits your workflow better
About Authentik
What is authentik? authentik is an open source Identity Provider (IdP) for modern SSO. It supports SAML, OAuth2/OIDC, LDAP, RADIUS, and more, designed for self hosting from small labs to large production clusters. Our enterprise offering is available for organizations to securely replace existing IdPs such as Okta, Auth0, Entra ID, and Ping Identity for robust, large scale identity management. Installation Docker Compose: recommended for small/test setups. See the documentation. Kubernetes (Helm Chart): recommended for larger setups. See the documentation and the Helm chart repository. AWS CloudFormation: deploy…
read the full Authentik overview →
About smart-sso
Smart SSO English 简体中文 Smart SSO is a lightweight authentication and authorization center (SSO) built on Spring Boot 3 and the OAuth 2.0 authorization code flow. It ships SSO login/logout, silent token renewal, forced logout, button level permissions and distributed deployment support — plus a zero dependency demo mode that starts with a single command, no database required. English guides for client integration, architecture, configuration and frequently asked questions are available under docs/ . Chinese originals remain available from the language switcher. Features 1. Lightweight — minimal implementation on…
read the full smart-sso overview →
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Frequently asked questions
Is Authentik or smart-sso more popular?
Authentik has 26,209 GitHub stars and smart-sso has 2,300. Authentik has the larger community by that measure.
Are Authentik and smart-sso free?
Both are open source. Authentik has no licence declared in this registry, and smart-sso is licensed under MIT. Both are free to self-host.
What is the difference between Authentik and smart-sso?
Authentik is written in Python and smart-sso in Java. The practical differences are community size, licence terms, language stack and release cadence — all compared in the table above.
Which should I choose, Authentik or smart-sso?
Choose Authentik if you want the larger community (26,209 stars) or its Custom / other licence terms. Choose smart-sso if its feature set, stack or MIT licence fits better. Both are self-hostable.