head to head · open source
authelia vs casbin
authelia has 29,017 GitHub stars, 1,488 forks, 137 open issues and last shipped today. casbin has 20,399 stars, 1,756 forks, 38 open issues and last shipped 9 days ago. authelia leads on adoption by 42% (29,017 vs 20,399 stars). authelia is written in Go under Apache-2.0; casbin is written in Go under Apache-2.0. authelia has attracted 5% as many forks as stars, casbin 9%. authelia was the more recently maintained of the two, and both are self-hostable with no licence fee. The two share 1 topic tag (authentication), 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 | casbin | |
|---|---|---|
| GitHub stars | ★ 29K | ★ 20K |
| License | Apache-2.0 | Apache-2.0 |
| Written in | Go | Go |
| Last push | 2026-09-20 | 2026-09-11 |
| Forks | ⑂ 1.5K | ⑂ 1.8K |
| 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 casbin if
- You want the casbin feature set and don't need the biggest community
- You prefer the Apache-2.0 license terms
- Your stack matches Go
- You evaluated both and casbin 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 casbin
Apache Casbin is an Apache licensed authorization library for Go that helps developers enforce access control models such as ACL, RBAC, and ABAC inside their own applications rather than in a separate service.
read the full casbin overview →
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Frequently asked questions
Is authelia or casbin more popular?
authelia has 29,017 GitHub stars and casbin has 20,399. authelia has the larger community by that measure.
Are authelia and casbin free?
Both are open source. authelia is licensed under Apache-2.0 and casbin under Apache-2.0. Neither carries a licence fee.
What is the difference between authelia and casbin?
authelia is written in Go and casbin 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 casbin?
Choose authelia if you want the larger community (29,017 stars) or its Apache-2.0 licence terms. Choose casbin if its feature set, stack or Apache-2.0 licence fits better. Both are self-hostable.