head to head · open source
hydra vs gokey
hydra has 17,645 GitHub stars, 1,618 forks, 98 open issues and last shipped 3 months ago. gokey has 2,440 stars, 110 forks, 8 open issues and last shipped 4 months ago. hydra leads on adoption by 623% (17,645 vs 2,440 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 5%. 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 | ⑂ 110 |
| 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
Chat · Discussions · Newsletter · Docs · Try Ory Network · Jobs Ory Hydra is a hardened, OpenID Certified OAuth 2.0 Server and OpenID Connect Provider optimized for low latency, high throughput, and low resource consumption. It connects to your existing identity provider through a login and consent app, giving you absolute control over the user interface and experience. What is Ory Hydra? Why Ory Hydra OAuth2 and OpenID Connect: Open Standards OpenID Connect Certified Deployment options Use Ory Hydra on the Ory Network Self host Ory Hydra Quickstart Who is using Ory Hydra Ecosystem Ory Kratos: Identity and User…
read the full hydra overview →
About gokey
gokey A simple vaultless password manager in Go gokey is a password manager, which does not require a password vault. Instead of storing your passwords in a vault it derives your password on the fly from your master password and supplied realm string (for example, resource URL). This way you do not have to manage, backup or sync your password vault (or trust its management to a third party) as your passwords are available immediately anywhere. example options o by default gokey outputs generated data to stdout P path to master password file which will be used to generate other passwords/keys or to encrypt seed…
read the full gokey overview →
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Frequently asked questions
Is hydra or gokey more popular?
hydra has 17,645 GitHub stars and gokey has 2,440. 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 (17,645 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.