head to head · open source
casbin vs Ory
casbin has 20,475 GitHub stars, 1,767 forks, 38 open issues and last shipped 3 days ago. Ory has 13,949 stars, 1,212 forks, 224 open issues and last shipped 3 months ago. casbin leads on adoption by 47% (20,475 vs 13,949 stars). casbin is written in Go under Apache-2.0; Ory is written in Go under Apache-2.0. casbin has attracted 9% as many forks as stars, Ory 9%. casbin 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.
← all 20902 open source comparisons
Side by side
| casbin | Ory | |
|---|---|---|
| GitHub stars | ★ 20K | ★ 14K |
| License | Apache-2.0 | Apache-2.0 |
| Written in | Go | Go |
| Last push | 2026-11-02 | 2026-07-29 |
| Forks | ⑂ 1.8K | ⑂ 1.2K |
| 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 Ory if
- You want the Ory feature set and don't need the biggest community
- You prefer the Apache-2.0 license terms
- Your stack matches Go
- You evaluated both and Ory 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 Ory
Chat · Discussions · Newsletter · Docs · Try Ory Network · Jobs Ory Kratos is an API first identity and user management system for cloud native applications. It centralizes login, registration, recovery, verification, and profile management flows so your services consume them instead of reimplementing them. Table of contents What is Ory Kratos? Why Ory Kratos Migrating from Auth0, Okta, and similar providers Deployment options Use Ory Kratos on the Ory Network Self host Ory Kratos Quickstart Who is using it? What is Ory Kratos? Ory Kratos is an API first identity and user management system that follows cloud…
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 casbin or Ory more popular?
casbin has 20,475 GitHub stars and Ory has 13,949. casbin has the larger community by that measure.
Are casbin and Ory free?
Both are open source. casbin is licensed under Apache-2.0 and Ory under Apache-2.0. Neither carries a licence fee.
What is the difference between casbin and Ory?
casbin is written in Go and Ory 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 Ory?
Choose casbin if you want the larger community (20,475 stars) or its Apache-2.0 licence terms. Choose Ory if its feature set, stack or Apache-2.0 licence fits better. Both are self-hostable.