head to head · open source
Zitadel vs oauth2-client
Zitadel has 15,536 GitHub stars, 1,418 forks, 1,171 open issues and last shipped 4 days ago. oauth2-client has 3,819 stars, 770 forks, 64 open issues and last shipped 2 days ago. Zitadel leads on adoption by 307% (15,536 vs 3,819 stars). Zitadel is written in Go under AGPL-3.0; oauth2-client is written in PHP under MIT. Zitadel has attracted 9% as many forks as stars, oauth2-client 20%. oauth2-client was the more recently maintained of the two, and both are self-hostable with no licence fee. The two share 3 topic tags (authentication, authorization, 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
| Zitadel | oauth2-client | |
|---|---|---|
| GitHub stars | ★ 16K | ★ 3.8K |
| License | AGPL-3.0 | MIT |
| Written in | Go | PHP |
| Last push | 2026-11-04 | 2026-11-06 |
| Forks | ⑂ 1.4K | ⑂ 770 |
| Self-hosting | Yes | Yes |
| Data ownership | Your server | Your server |
pick Zitadel if
- You weight community size — 16K stars and counting
- You want the AGPL-3.0 license terms
- Your stack matches Go
- You value the larger contributor base for long-term maintenance
pick oauth2-client if
- You want the oauth2-client feature set and don't need the biggest community
- You prefer the MIT license terms
- Your stack matches PHP
- You evaluated both and oauth2-client fits your workflow better
About Zitadel
The Identity Infrastructure for Developers ZITADEL is an open source identity and access management platform built for teams that need more than basic auth. Whether you're securing a SaaS product, building a B2B platform, or self hosting a production IAM stack — ZITADEL gives you everything out of the box: SSO, MFA, Passkeys, OIDC, SAML, SCIM, and a battle tested multi tenancy model. No vendor lock in. No compromise on control. Just a robust, API first identity platform you can own. 🏡 Website 💬 Chat 📋 Docs 🧑💻 Blog 📞 Contact Why ZITADEL We built ZITADEL to handle the hardest IAM challenges at scale —…
read the full Zitadel overview →
About oauth2-client
OAuth 2.0 Client This package provides a base for integrating with OAuth 2.0 service providers. The OAuth 2.0 login flow, seen commonly around the web in the form of "Connect with Facebook/Google/etc." buttons, is a common integration added to web applications, but it can be tricky and tedious to do right. To help, we've created the league/oauth2 client package, which provides a base for integrating with various OAuth 2.0 providers, without overburdening your application with the concerns of RFC 6749. This OAuth 2.0 client library will work with any OAuth 2.0 provider that conforms to the OAuth 2.0 Authorization…
read the full oauth2-client overview →
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Frequently asked questions
Is Zitadel or oauth2-client more popular?
Zitadel has 15,536 GitHub stars and oauth2-client has 3,819. Zitadel has the larger community by that measure.
Are Zitadel and oauth2-client free?
Both are open source. Zitadel is licensed under AGPL-3.0 and oauth2-client under MIT. Neither carries a licence fee.
What is the difference between Zitadel and oauth2-client?
Zitadel is written in Go and oauth2-client in PHP. The practical differences are community size, licence terms, language stack and release cadence — all compared in the table above.
Which should I choose, Zitadel or oauth2-client?
Choose Zitadel if you want the larger community (15,536 stars) or its AGPL-3.0 licence terms. Choose oauth2-client if its feature set, stack or MIT licence fits better. Both are self-hostable.