head to head · open source
hydra vs gokey
hydra has 17,554 GitHub stars, 1,609 forks, 98 open issues and last shipped 2 months ago. gokey has 2,436 stars, 109 forks, 8 open issues and last shipped 2 months ago. hydra leads on adoption by 621% (17,554 vs 2,436 stars). hydra is written in Go under Apache-2.0; gokey is written in Go under BSD-3-Clause. hydra has attracted 9% as many forks as stars, gokey 4%. hydra 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
| hydra | gokey | |
|---|---|---|
| GitHub stars | ★ 18K | ★ 2.4K |
| License | Apache-2.0 | BSD-3-Clause |
| Written in | Go | Go |
| Last push | 2026-07-29 | 2026-07-10 |
| Forks | ⑂ 1.6K | ⑂ 109 |
| Self-hosting | Yes | Yes |
| Data ownership | Your server | Your server |
pick hydra if
- You weight community size — 18K 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 gokey if
- You want the gokey feature set and don't need the biggest community
- You prefer the BSD-3-Clause license terms
- Your stack matches Go
- You evaluated both and gokey fits your workflow better
About hydra
Ory Hydra is an OpenID Certified OpenID Connect and OAuth 2.1 provider written in Go and licensed under Apache 2.0, built for teams that need standards compliant token issuance, client management, and consent flows while user accounts stay in their own existing identity system.
read the full hydra overview →
About gokey
gokey is a vaultless password and key generator written in Go that derives passwords and cryptographic private keys on demand from a master password or a seed file instead of storing them in a vault, aimed at developers and system administrators who want deterministic credentials available anywhere without managing, backing up, or syncing a password store.
read the full gokey overview →
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Frequently asked questions
Is hydra or gokey more popular?
hydra has 17,554 GitHub stars and gokey has 2,436. hydra has the larger community by that measure.
Are hydra and gokey free?
Both are open source. hydra is licensed under Apache-2.0 and gokey under BSD-3-Clause. Neither carries a licence fee.
What is the difference between hydra and gokey?
hydra is written in Go and gokey 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, hydra or gokey?
Choose hydra if you want the larger community (17,554 stars) or its Apache-2.0 licence terms. Choose gokey if its feature set, stack or BSD-3-Clause licence fits better. Both are self-hostable.