head to head · open source
casbin vs pocket-id
casbin has 20,399 GitHub stars, 1,756 forks, 38 open issues and last shipped 9 days ago. pocket-id has 9,230 stars, 312 forks, 98 open issues and last shipped yesterday. casbin leads on adoption by 121% (20,399 vs 9,230 stars). casbin is written in Go under Apache-2.0; pocket-id is written in Go under BSD-2-Clause. casbin has attracted 9% as many forks as stars, pocket-id 3%. pocket-id 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
| casbin | pocket-id | |
|---|---|---|
| GitHub stars | ★ 20K | ★ 9.2K |
| License | Apache-2.0 | BSD-2-Clause |
| Written in | Go | Go |
| Last push | 2026-09-11 | 2026-09-19 |
| Forks | ⑂ 1.8K | ⑂ 312 |
| Self-hosting | Yes | Yes |
| Data ownership | Your server | Your server |
pick casbin if
- You weight community size — 20K 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 pocket-id if
- You want the pocket-id feature set and don't need the biggest community
- You prefer the BSD-2-Clause license terms
- Your stack matches Go
- You evaluated both and pocket-id fits your workflow better
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 →
About pocket-id
Pocket ID is a self hosted, OpenID Connect Certified™ and OAuth 2.0 provider, written in Go, that authenticates users with passkeys and passwords never, aimed at anyone who wants single sign on for their own applications without standing up a heavyweight identity platform.
read the full pocket-id overview →
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Frequently asked questions
Is casbin or pocket-id more popular?
casbin has 20,399 GitHub stars and pocket-id has 9,230. casbin has the larger community by that measure.
Are casbin and pocket-id free?
Both are open source. casbin is licensed under Apache-2.0 and pocket-id under BSD-2-Clause. Neither carries a licence fee.
What is the difference between casbin and pocket-id?
casbin is written in Go and pocket-id 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, casbin or pocket-id?
Choose casbin if you want the larger community (20,399 stars) or its Apache-2.0 licence terms. Choose pocket-id if its feature set, stack or BSD-2-Clause licence fits better. Both are self-hostable.