head to head · open source
Ory vs TheIdServer
Ory has 13,912 GitHub stars, 1,188 forks, 224 open issues and last shipped 2 months ago. TheIdServer has 756 stars, 92 forks, 2 open issues and last shipped 3 days ago. Ory leads on adoption by 1,740% (13,912 vs 756 stars). Ory is written in Go under Apache-2.0; TheIdServer is written in C# under Apache-2.0. Ory has attracted 9% as many forks as stars, TheIdServer 12%. TheIdServer 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
| Ory | TheIdServer | |
|---|---|---|
| GitHub stars | ★ 14K | ★ 756 |
| License | Apache-2.0 | Apache-2.0 |
| Written in | Go | C# |
| Last push | 2026-07-29 | 2026-10-05 |
| Forks | ⑂ 1.2K | ⑂ 92 |
| 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 TheIdServer if
- You want the TheIdServer feature set and don't need the biggest community
- You prefer the Apache-2.0 license terms
- Your stack matches C#
- You evaluated both and TheIdServer 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 TheIdServer
TheIdServer is an open source identity and access management server for .NET teams that need to issue OpenID/Connect, OAuth2, WS Federation and SAML 2.0 tokens from a single self hosted system with a browser based admin interface.
read the full TheIdServer overview →
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Frequently asked questions
Is Ory or TheIdServer more popular?
Ory has 13,912 GitHub stars and TheIdServer has 756. Ory has the larger community by that measure.
Are Ory and TheIdServer free?
Both are open source. Ory is licensed under Apache-2.0 and TheIdServer under Apache-2.0. Neither carries a licence fee.
What is the difference between Ory and TheIdServer?
Ory is written in Go and TheIdServer in C#. 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 TheIdServer?
Choose Ory if you want the larger community (13,912 stars) or its Apache-2.0 licence terms. Choose TheIdServer if its feature set, stack or Apache-2.0 licence fits better. Both are self-hostable.