head to head · open source
hydra vs Ory
hydra has 17,553 GitHub stars, 1,609 forks, 98 open issues and last shipped 2 months ago. Ory has 13,883 stars, 1,186 forks, 224 open issues and last shipped 2 months ago. hydra leads on adoption by 26% (17,553 vs 13,883 stars). hydra is written in Go under Apache-2.0; Ory is written in Go under Apache-2.0. hydra has attracted 9% as many forks as stars, Ory 9%. Ory was the more recently maintained of the two, and both are self-hostable with no licence fee. The two share 2 topic tags (hacktoberfest, identity), 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 | Ory | |
|---|---|---|
| GitHub stars | ★ 18K | ★ 14K |
| License | Apache-2.0 | Apache-2.0 |
| Written in | Go | Go |
| Last push | 2026-07-29 | 2026-07-29 |
| Forks | ⑂ 1.6K | ⑂ 1.2K |
| 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 Ory if
- You want the Ory feature set and don't need the biggest community
- You prefer the Apache-2.0 license terms
- Your stack matches Go
- You evaluated both and Ory 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 Ory
Ory Kratos is headless cloud native authentication and identity management system written in Go. It sits inside Ory stack and Security & Privacy / Identity & Access Management category. It exposes identity work over HTTP APIs. Services consume login, registration, recovery, verification, profile management instead of reimplementing them.
More in Security & Privacy
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Frequently asked questions
Is hydra or Ory more popular?
hydra has 17,553 GitHub stars and Ory has 13,883. hydra has the larger community by that measure.
Are hydra and Ory free?
Both are open source. hydra is licensed under Apache-2.0 and Ory under Apache-2.0. Neither carries a licence fee.
What is the difference between hydra and Ory?
hydra is written in Go and Ory 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 Ory?
Choose hydra if you want the larger community (17,553 stars) or its Apache-2.0 licence terms. Choose Ory if its feature set, stack or Apache-2.0 licence fits better. Both are self-hostable.