head to head · open source
hydra vs tinyauth
hydra has 17,646 GitHub stars, 1,618 forks, 98 open issues and last shipped 3 months ago. tinyauth has 8,478 stars, 289 forks, 41 open issues and last shipped today. hydra leads on adoption by 108% (17,646 vs 8,478 stars). hydra is written in Go under Apache-2.0; tinyauth is written in Go under AGPL-3.0. hydra has attracted 9% as many forks as stars, tinyauth 3%. tinyauth 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 | tinyauth | |
|---|---|---|
| GitHub stars | ★ 18K | ★ 8.5K |
| License | Apache-2.0 | AGPL-3.0 |
| Written in | Go | Go |
| Last push | 2026-07-29 | 2026-11-06 |
| Forks | ⑂ 1.6K | ⑂ 289 |
| 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 tinyauth if
- You want the tinyauth feature set and don't need the biggest community
- You prefer the AGPL-3.0 license terms
- Your stack matches Go
- You evaluated both and tinyauth fits your workflow better
About hydra
Chat · Discussions · Newsletter · Docs · Try Ory Network · Jobs Ory Hydra is a hardened, OpenID Certified OAuth 2.0 Server and OpenID Connect Provider optimized for low latency, high throughput, and low resource consumption. It connects to your existing identity provider through a login and consent app, giving you absolute control over the user interface and experience. What is Ory Hydra? Why Ory Hydra OAuth2 and OpenID Connect: Open Standards OpenID Connect Certified Deployment options Use Ory Hydra on the Ory Network Self host Ory Hydra Quickstart Who is using Ory Hydra Ecosystem Ory Kratos: Identity and User…
read the full hydra overview →
About tinyauth
Tinyauth The tiniest OpenID Certified™ authorization and authentication server you have ever seen. Tinyauth is the simplest and tiniest authentication and authorization server you have ever seen. It is designed to both work as an authentication middleware for your apps, offering support for OAuth, LDAP and access controls, and as a standalone authentication server. It supports all the popular proxies like Traefik, Nginx and Caddy. [!WARNING] Tinyauth is in active development and configuration may change often. Please make sure to carefully read the release notes before updating. [!NOTE] This is the main…
read the full tinyauth overview →
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Frequently asked questions
Is hydra or tinyauth more popular?
hydra has 17,646 GitHub stars and tinyauth has 8,478. hydra has the larger community by that measure.
Are hydra and tinyauth free?
Both are open source. hydra is licensed under Apache-2.0 and tinyauth under AGPL-3.0. Neither carries a licence fee.
What is the difference between hydra and tinyauth?
hydra is written in Go and tinyauth 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 tinyauth?
Choose hydra if you want the larger community (17,646 stars) or its Apache-2.0 licence terms. Choose tinyauth if its feature set, stack or AGPL-3.0 licence fits better. Both are self-hostable.