head to head · open source
Ory vs polis
Ory has 13,892 GitHub stars, 1,190 forks, 224 open issues and last shipped 2 months ago. polis has 2,266 stars, 234 forks, 35 open issues and last shipped 2 months ago. Ory leads on adoption by 513% (13,892 vs 2,266 stars). Ory is written in Go under Apache-2.0; polis is written in TypeScript under Apache-2.0. Ory has attracted 9% as many forks as stars, polis 10%. Ory 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 | polis | |
|---|---|---|
| GitHub stars | ★ 14K | ★ 2.3K |
| License | Apache-2.0 | Apache-2.0 |
| Written in | Go | TypeScript |
| Last push | 2026-07-29 | 2026-07-27 |
| Forks | ⑂ 1.2K | ⑂ 234 |
| 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 polis if
- You want the polis feature set and don't need the biggest community
- You prefer the Apache-2.0 license terms
- Your stack matches TypeScript
- You evaluated both and polis 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 polis
Ory Polis is an open source, Apache 2.0 licensed single sign on service that bridges SAML login flows to OAuth 2.0 or OpenID Connect and adds SCIM 2.0 directory sync, aimed at developers and platform teams that need enterprise authentication and automated user provisioning in web applications without implementing those protocols themselves.
read the full polis overview →
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Frequently asked questions
Is Ory or polis more popular?
Ory has 13,892 GitHub stars and polis has 2,266. Ory has the larger community by that measure.
Are Ory and polis free?
Both are open source. Ory is licensed under Apache-2.0 and polis under Apache-2.0. Neither carries a licence fee.
What is the difference between Ory and polis?
Ory is written in Go and polis in TypeScript. 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 polis?
Choose Ory if you want the larger community (13,892 stars) or its Apache-2.0 licence terms. Choose polis if its feature set, stack or Apache-2.0 licence fits better. Both are self-hostable.