head to head · open source
casbin vs oauth2-proxy
casbin has 20,475 GitHub stars, 1,767 forks, 38 open issues and last shipped 3 days ago. oauth2-proxy has 15,319 stars, 2,259 forks, 285 open issues and last shipped yesterday. casbin leads on adoption by 34% (20,475 vs 15,319 stars). casbin is written in Go under Apache-2.0; oauth2-proxy is written in Go under MIT. casbin has attracted 9% as many forks as stars, oauth2-proxy 15%. oauth2-proxy 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
| casbin | oauth2-proxy | |
|---|---|---|
| GitHub stars | ★ 20K | ★ 15K |
| License | Apache-2.0 | MIT |
| Written in | Go | Go |
| Last push | 2026-11-02 | 2026-11-04 |
| Forks | ⑂ 1.8K | ⑂ 2.3K |
| Self-hosting | Yes | Yes |
| Data ownership | Your server | Your server |
pick casbin if
- You weight community size — 20K 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 oauth2-proxy if
- You want the oauth2-proxy feature set and don't need the biggest community
- You prefer the MIT license terms
- Your stack matches Go
- You evaluated both and oauth2-proxy fits your workflow better
About casbin
Apache Casbin ==== News : still worry about how to write the correct Apache Casbin policy? Apache Casbin online editor is coming to help! Try it at: Apache Casbin is a powerful and efficient open source access control library for Golang projects. It provides support for enforcing authorization based on various access control models. All the languages supported by Apache Casbin: Table of contents Supported models How it works? Features Installation Documentation Online editor Tutorials Get started Policy management Policy persistence Policy consistence between multiple nodes Role manager Benchmarks Examples…
read the full casbin overview →
About oauth2-proxy
OAuth2 Proxy is a flexible, open source tool that can act as either a standalone reverse proxy or a middleware component integrated into existing reverse proxy or load balancer setups. It provides a simple and secure way to protect your web applications with OAuth2 / OIDC authentication. As a reverse proxy, it intercepts requests to your application and redirects users to an OAuth2 provider for authentication. As a middleware, it can be seamlessly integrated into your existing infrastructure to handle authentication for multiple applications. OAuth2 Proxy supports a lot of OAuth2 as well as OIDC providers…
read the full oauth2-proxy overview →
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Frequently asked questions
Is casbin or oauth2-proxy more popular?
casbin has 20,475 GitHub stars and oauth2-proxy has 15,319. casbin has the larger community by that measure.
Are casbin and oauth2-proxy free?
Both are open source. casbin is licensed under Apache-2.0 and oauth2-proxy under MIT. Neither carries a licence fee.
What is the difference between casbin and oauth2-proxy?
casbin is written in Go and oauth2-proxy 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, casbin or oauth2-proxy?
Choose casbin if you want the larger community (20,475 stars) or its Apache-2.0 licence terms. Choose oauth2-proxy if its feature set, stack or MIT licence fits better. Both are self-hostable.