head to head · open source
Ory vs pac4j
Ory has 13,899 GitHub stars, 1,191 forks, 224 open issues and last shipped 2 months ago. pac4j has 2,530 stars, 711 forks, 5 open issues and last shipped yesterday. Ory leads on adoption by 449% (13,899 vs 2,530 stars). Ory is written in Go under Apache-2.0; pac4j is written in Java under Apache-2.0. Ory has attracted 9% as many forks as stars, pac4j 28%. pac4j was the more recently maintained of the two, and both are self-hostable with no licence fee. The two share 1 topic tag (identity), 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 | pac4j | |
|---|---|---|
| GitHub stars | ★ 14K | ★ 2.5K |
| License | Apache-2.0 | Apache-2.0 |
| Written in | Go | Java |
| Last push | 2026-07-29 | 2026-09-30 |
| Forks | ⑂ 1.2K | ⑂ 711 |
| 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 pac4j if
- You want the pac4j feature set and don't need the biggest community
- You prefer the Apache-2.0 license terms
- Your stack matches Java
- You evaluated both and pac4j fits your workflow better
About Ory
Ory Kratos is headless cloud native authentication and identity management system written in Go. It sits inside Ory stack and Security & Privacy / Identity & Access Management category. It exposes identity work over HTTP APIs. Services consume login, registration, recovery, verification, profile management instead of reimplementing them.
About pac4j
pac4j is a security engine for Java that adds authentication and authorization — across OpenID Connect, SAML 2, CAS, OAuth, JWT, LDAP and more — to any Java framework through one shared API.
read the full pac4j overview →
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Frequently asked questions
Is Ory or pac4j more popular?
Ory has 13,899 GitHub stars and pac4j has 2,530. Ory has the larger community by that measure.
Are Ory and pac4j free?
Both are open source. Ory is licensed under Apache-2.0 and pac4j under Apache-2.0. Neither carries a licence fee.
What is the difference between Ory and pac4j?
Ory is written in Go and pac4j in Java. 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 pac4j?
Choose Ory if you want the larger community (13,899 stars) or its Apache-2.0 licence terms. Choose pac4j if its feature set, stack or Apache-2.0 licence fits better. Both are self-hostable.