head to head · open source
hydra vs Hexclave
hydra has 17,553 GitHub stars, 1,609 forks, 98 open issues and last shipped 2 months ago. Hexclave has 6,863 stars, 522 forks, 65 open issues and last shipped yesterday. hydra leads on adoption by 156% (17,553 vs 6,863 stars). hydra is written in Go under Apache-2.0; Hexclave is written in TypeScript under a custom or non-standard licence. hydra has attracted 9% as many forks as stars, Hexclave 8%. Hexclave was the more recently maintained of the two, and both are self-hostable with no licence fee. The two share 2 topic tags (authorization, oauth), 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
| hydra | Hexclave | |
|---|---|---|
| GitHub stars | ★ 18K | ★ 6.9K |
| License | Apache-2.0 | Custom / other |
| Written in | Go | TypeScript |
| Last push | 2026-07-29 | 2026-09-19 |
| Forks | ⑂ 1.6K | ⑂ 522 |
| 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 Hexclave if
- You want the Hexclave feature set and don't need the biggest community
- You prefer the Custom / other license terms
- Your stack matches TypeScript
- You evaluated both and Hexclave 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 Hexclave
Hexclave is an open source user infrastructure platform written in TypeScript and distributed under a license the repository metadata lists as NOASSERTION, while the README badge states MIT / AGPLv3. It describes itself as handling everything around a product's users: authentication, teams, payments, emails, analytics, and more. The project lives in the JavaScript and TypeScript ecosystem, shipping SDKs for Next.js, React, and plain JavaScript, and it is positioned against hosted identity and user management services such as Auth0 and Clerk, both of which appear in its topic list.
read the full Hexclave overview →
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Frequently asked questions
Is hydra or Hexclave more popular?
hydra has 17,553 GitHub stars and Hexclave has 6,863. hydra has the larger community by that measure.
Are hydra and Hexclave free?
Both are open source. hydra is licensed under Apache-2.0, and Hexclave has no licence declared in this registry. Both are free to self-host.
What is the difference between hydra and Hexclave?
hydra is written in Go and Hexclave in TypeScript. 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 Hexclave?
Choose hydra if you want the larger community (17,553 stars) or its Apache-2.0 licence terms. Choose Hexclave if its feature set, stack or Custom / other licence fits better. Both are self-hostable.