head to head · open source
Zitadel vs Hexclave
Zitadel has 15,514 GitHub stars, 1,417 forks, 1,171 open issues and last shipped yesterday. Hexclave has 6,887 stars, 528 forks, 65 open issues and last shipped yesterday. Zitadel leads on adoption by 125% (15,514 vs 6,887 stars). Zitadel is written in Go under AGPL-3.0; Hexclave is written in TypeScript under a custom or non-standard licence. Zitadel 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 (authentication, authorization), 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
| Zitadel | Hexclave | |
|---|---|---|
| GitHub stars | ★ 16K | ★ 6.9K |
| License | AGPL-3.0 | Custom / other |
| Written in | Go | TypeScript |
| Last push | 2026-11-04 | 2026-11-04 |
| Forks | ⑂ 1.4K | ⑂ 528 |
| Self-hosting | Yes | Yes |
| Data ownership | Your server | Your server |
pick Zitadel if
- You weight community size — 16K stars and counting
- You want the AGPL-3.0 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 Zitadel
The Identity Infrastructure for Developers ZITADEL is an open source identity and access management platform built for teams that need more than basic auth. Whether you're securing a SaaS product, building a B2B platform, or self hosting a production IAM stack — ZITADEL gives you everything out of the box: SSO, MFA, Passkeys, OIDC, SAML, SCIM, and a battle tested multi tenancy model. No vendor lock in. No compromise on control. Just a robust, API first identity platform you can own. 🏡 Website 💬 Chat 📋 Docs 🧑💻 Blog 📞 Contact Why ZITADEL We built ZITADEL to handle the hardest IAM challenges at scale —…
read the full Zitadel overview →
About Hexclave
Hexclave The user infrastructure platform. Hexclave handles everything around your users: authentication, teams, payments, emails, analytics, and much more. Get started with our AI prompt below. Website · Docs · Dashboard · Discord Get started Setting up Hexclave is one prompt. Paste this into your coding agent of choice: For AI agents If you're an AI coding agent, use your web fetch tool or curl the skill documentation for up to date integration instructions: What's included Hexclave ships as a catalog of apps you switch on as your product needs them. Each one is built on the same user model, and new apps land…
read the full Hexclave overview →
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Frequently asked questions
Is Zitadel or Hexclave more popular?
Zitadel has 15,514 GitHub stars and Hexclave has 6,887. Zitadel has the larger community by that measure.
Are Zitadel and Hexclave free?
Both are open source. Zitadel is licensed under AGPL-3.0, and Hexclave has no licence declared in this registry. Both are free to self-host.
What is the difference between Zitadel and Hexclave?
Zitadel 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, Zitadel or Hexclave?
Choose Zitadel if you want the larger community (15,514 stars) or its AGPL-3.0 licence terms. Choose Hexclave if its feature set, stack or Custom / other licence fits better. Both are self-hostable.