head to head · open source
hydra vs passforios
hydra has 17,555 GitHub stars, 1,610 forks, 98 open issues and last shipped 2 months ago. passforios has 1,645 stars, 114 forks, 176 open issues and last shipped 1 months ago. hydra leads on adoption by 967% (17,555 vs 1,645 stars). hydra is written in Go under Apache-2.0; passforios is written in Swift under MIT. hydra has attracted 9% as many forks as stars, passforios 7%. passforios 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
| hydra | passforios | |
|---|---|---|
| GitHub stars | ★ 18K | ★ 1.6K |
| License | Apache-2.0 | MIT |
| Written in | Go | Swift |
| Last push | 2026-07-29 | 2026-08-19 |
| Forks | ⑂ 1.6K | ⑂ 114 |
| Self-hosting | Yes | Yes |
| Data ownership | Your server | Your server |
pick hydra if
- You weight community size — 18K 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 passforios if
- You want the passforios feature set and don't need the biggest community
- You prefer the MIT license terms
- Your stack matches Swift
- You evaluated both and passforios fits your workflow better
About hydra
Ory Hydra is an OpenID Certified OpenID Connect and OAuth 2.1 provider written in Go and licensed under Apache 2.0, built for teams that need standards compliant token issuance, client management, and consent flows while user accounts stay in their own existing identity system.
read the full hydra overview →
About passforios
Pass for iOS is an open source iOS client for ZX2C4's Pass command line password manager, built for people who already keep credentials in a GPG encrypted, Git versioned password store and want to view, copy, or edit them from an iPhone or iPad.
read the full passforios overview →
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Frequently asked questions
Is hydra or passforios more popular?
hydra has 17,555 GitHub stars and passforios has 1,645. hydra has the larger community by that measure.
Are hydra and passforios free?
Both are open source. hydra is licensed under Apache-2.0 and passforios under MIT. Neither carries a licence fee.
What is the difference between hydra and passforios?
hydra is written in Go and passforios in Swift. The practical differences are community size, licence terms, language stack and release cadence — all compared in the table above.
Which should I choose, hydra or passforios?
Choose hydra if you want the larger community (17,555 stars) or its Apache-2.0 licence terms. Choose passforios if its feature set, stack or MIT licence fits better. Both are self-hostable.