head to head · open source
hydra vs melody-auth
hydra has 17,553 GitHub stars, 1,609 forks, 98 open issues and last shipped 2 months ago. melody-auth has 639 stars, 66 forks, 3 open issues and last shipped 18 days ago. hydra leads on adoption by 2,647% (17,553 vs 639 stars). hydra is written in Go under Apache-2.0; melody-auth is written in TypeScript under MIT. hydra has attracted 9% as many forks as stars, melody-auth 10%. melody-auth was the more recently maintained of the two, and both are self-hostable with no licence fee. The two share 1 topic tag (oauth2), 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 | melody-auth | |
|---|---|---|
| GitHub stars | ★ 18K | ★ 639 |
| License | Apache-2.0 | MIT |
| Written in | Go | TypeScript |
| Last push | 2026-07-29 | 2026-09-02 |
| Forks | ⑂ 1.6K | ⑂ 66 |
| 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 melody-auth if
- You want the melody-auth feature set and don't need the biggest community
- You prefer the MIT license terms
- Your stack matches TypeScript
- You evaluated both and melody-auth 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 melody-auth
Melody Auth is an MIT licensed, TypeScript written OAuth 2.0 and authentication server that runs on both Cloudflare Workers and Node.js, and it is aimed at teams that want to host their own identity provider instead of renting one.
read the full melody-auth overview →
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Frequently asked questions
Is hydra or melody-auth more popular?
hydra has 17,553 GitHub stars and melody-auth has 639. hydra has the larger community by that measure.
Are hydra and melody-auth free?
Both are open source. hydra is licensed under Apache-2.0 and melody-auth under MIT. Neither carries a licence fee.
What is the difference between hydra and melody-auth?
hydra is written in Go and melody-auth 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 melody-auth?
Choose hydra if you want the larger community (17,553 stars) or its Apache-2.0 licence terms. Choose melody-auth if its feature set, stack or MIT licence fits better. Both are self-hostable.