head to head · open source
Ory vs dex
Ory has 13,949 GitHub stars, 1,212 forks, 224 open issues and last shipped 3 months ago. dex has 11,229 stars, 2,016 forks, 547 open issues and last shipped 2 days ago. Ory leads on adoption by 24% (13,949 vs 11,229 stars). Ory is written in Go under Apache-2.0; dex is written in Go under Apache-2.0. Ory has attracted 9% as many forks as stars, dex 18%. dex was the more recently maintained of the two, and both are self-hostable with no licence fee. The two share 1 topic tag (hacktoberfest), 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
| Ory | dex | |
|---|---|---|
| GitHub stars | ★ 14K | ★ 11K |
| License | Apache-2.0 | Apache-2.0 |
| Written in | Go | Go |
| Last push | 2026-07-29 | 2026-11-03 |
| Forks | ⑂ 1.2K | ⑂ 2.0K |
| Self-hosting | Yes | Yes |
| Data ownership | Your server | Your server |
pick Ory if
- You weight community size — 14K 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 dex if
- You want the dex 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 dex fits your workflow better
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…
About dex
dex A federated OpenID Connect provider Dex is an identity service that uses [OpenID Connect][openid connect] to drive authentication for other apps. Dex acts as a portal to other identity providers through "connectors." This lets dex defer authentication to LDAP servers, SAML providers, or established identity providers like GitHub, Google, and Active Directory. Clients write their authentication logic once to talk to dex, then dex handles the protocols for a given backend. ID Tokens ID Tokens are an OAuth2 extension introduced by OpenID Connect and dex's primary feature. ID Tokens are [JSON Web Tokens][jwt io]…
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Frequently asked questions
Is Ory or dex more popular?
Ory has 13,949 GitHub stars and dex has 11,229. Ory has the larger community by that measure.
Are Ory and dex free?
Both are open source. Ory is licensed under Apache-2.0 and dex under Apache-2.0. Neither carries a licence fee.
What is the difference between Ory and dex?
Ory is written in Go and dex 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, Ory or dex?
Choose Ory if you want the larger community (13,949 stars) or its Apache-2.0 licence terms. Choose dex if its feature set, stack or Apache-2.0 licence fits better. Both are self-hostable.