head to head · open source
hydra vs product-is
hydra has 17,589 GitHub stars, 1,607 forks, 98 open issues and last shipped 2 months ago. product-is has 882 stars, 1,033 forks, 1,632 open issues and last shipped today. hydra leads on adoption by 1,894% (17,589 vs 882 stars). hydra is written in Go under Apache-2.0; product-is is written in Java under Apache-2.0. hydra has attracted 9% as many forks as stars, product-is 117%. product-is was the more recently maintained of the two, and both are self-hostable with no licence fee. The two share 4 topic tags (authorization, hacktoberfest, identity, 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.
← all 20902 open source comparisons
Side by side
| hydra | product-is | |
|---|---|---|
| GitHub stars | ★ 18K | ★ 882 |
| License | Apache-2.0 | Apache-2.0 |
| Written in | Go | Java |
| Last push | 2026-07-29 | 2026-10-05 |
| Forks | ⑂ 1.6K | ⑂ 1.0K |
| 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 product-is if
- You want the product-is feature set and don't need the biggest community
- You prefer the Apache-2.0 license terms
- Your stack matches Java
- You evaluated both and product-is 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 product-is
WSO2 Identity Server is an open source identity and access management platform for Java based on premises and cloud deployments, aimed at teams that need to secure applications, APIs, workforce, consumer, and business customer logins under standards such as OAuth 2.0, OIDC, and SAML 2.0.
read the full product-is overview →
More in Security & Privacy
Related comparisons
More Identity & Access Management (IAM) projects
Compare either of these against the rest of the Identity & Access Management (IAM) field.
Frequently asked questions
Is hydra or product-is more popular?
hydra has 17,589 GitHub stars and product-is has 882. hydra has the larger community by that measure.
Are hydra and product-is free?
Both are open source. hydra is licensed under Apache-2.0 and product-is under Apache-2.0. Neither carries a licence fee.
What is the difference between hydra and product-is?
hydra is written in Go and product-is in Java. 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 product-is?
Choose hydra if you want the larger community (17,589 stars) or its Apache-2.0 licence terms. Choose product-is if its feature set, stack or Apache-2.0 licence fits better. Both are self-hostable.