head to head · open source
hydra vs rauthy
hydra has 17,585 GitHub stars, 1,607 forks, 98 open issues and last shipped 2 months ago. rauthy has 1,355 stars, 140 forks, 27 open issues and last shipped yesterday. hydra leads on adoption by 1,198% (17,585 vs 1,355 stars). hydra is written in Go under Apache-2.0; rauthy is written in Rust under Apache-2.0. hydra has attracted 9% as many forks as stars, rauthy 10%. rauthy was the more recently maintained of the two, and both are self-hostable with no licence fee.
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 | rauthy | |
|---|---|---|
| GitHub stars | ★ 18K | ★ 1.4K |
| License | Apache-2.0 | Apache-2.0 |
| Written in | Go | Rust |
| Last push | 2026-07-29 | 2026-10-02 |
| Forks | ⑂ 1.6K | ⑂ 140 |
| 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 rauthy if
- You want the rauthy feature set and don't need the biggest community
- You prefer the Apache-2.0 license terms
- Your stack matches Rust
- You evaluated both and rauthy 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 rauthy
Rauthy is a self hosted Single Sign On identity provider written in Rust that issues OpenID Connect and OAuth 2 tokens, supports PAM, and is aimed at teams that want to run their own authentication server — from a Raspberry Pi up to a high availability cluster — without operating a heavyweight stack like Keycloak.
read the full rauthy overview →
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Frequently asked questions
Is hydra or rauthy more popular?
hydra has 17,585 GitHub stars and rauthy has 1,355. hydra has the larger community by that measure.
Are hydra and rauthy free?
Both are open source. hydra is licensed under Apache-2.0 and rauthy under Apache-2.0. Neither carries a licence fee.
What is the difference between hydra and rauthy?
hydra is written in Go and rauthy in Rust. 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 rauthy?
Choose hydra if you want the larger community (17,585 stars) or its Apache-2.0 licence terms. Choose rauthy if its feature set, stack or Apache-2.0 licence fits better. Both are self-hostable.