head to head · open source
casbin vs pocket-id
casbin has 20,475 GitHub stars, 1,767 forks, 38 open issues and last shipped 3 days ago. pocket-id has 9,965 stars, 349 forks, 98 open issues and last shipped 2 days ago. casbin leads on adoption by 105% (20,475 vs 9,965 stars). casbin is written in Go under Apache-2.0; pocket-id is written in Go under BSD-2-Clause. casbin has attracted 9% as many forks as stars, pocket-id 4%. pocket-id 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
| casbin | pocket-id | |
|---|---|---|
| GitHub stars | ★ 20K | ★ 10.0K |
| License | Apache-2.0 | BSD-2-Clause |
| Written in | Go | Go |
| Last push | 2026-11-02 | 2026-11-03 |
| Forks | ⑂ 1.8K | ⑂ 349 |
| Self-hosting | Yes | Yes |
| Data ownership | Your server | Your server |
pick casbin if
- You weight community size — 20K 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 pocket-id if
- You want the pocket-id feature set and don't need the biggest community
- You prefer the BSD-2-Clause license terms
- Your stack matches Go
- You evaluated both and pocket-id fits your workflow better
About casbin
Apache Casbin ==== News : still worry about how to write the correct Apache Casbin policy? Apache Casbin online editor is coming to help! Try it at: Apache Casbin is a powerful and efficient open source access control library for Golang projects. It provides support for enforcing authorization based on various access control models. All the languages supported by Apache Casbin: Table of contents Supported models How it works? Features Installation Documentation Online editor Tutorials Get started Policy management Policy persistence Policy consistence between multiple nodes Role manager Benchmarks Examples…
read the full casbin overview →
About pocket-id
Pocket ID Pocket ID is an easy to use OpenID Connect Certified™ and OAuth 2.0 provider that lets users sign in to your applications with passkeys. → Try out the Demo The goal of Pocket ID is to be a simple and easy to use. There are other self hosted OIDC and OAuth 2.0 providers like Keycloak or ORY Hydra but they are often too complex for simple use cases. Additionally, what makes Pocket ID special is that it only supports passkey authentication, which means you don’t need a password. Some people might not like this idea at first, but I believe passkeys are the future, and once you try them, you’ll love them…
read the full pocket-id overview →
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Frequently asked questions
Is casbin or pocket-id more popular?
casbin has 20,475 GitHub stars and pocket-id has 9,965. casbin has the larger community by that measure.
Are casbin and pocket-id free?
Both are open source. casbin is licensed under Apache-2.0 and pocket-id under BSD-2-Clause. Neither carries a licence fee.
What is the difference between casbin and pocket-id?
casbin is written in Go and pocket-id 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, casbin or pocket-id?
Choose casbin if you want the larger community (20,475 stars) or its Apache-2.0 licence terms. Choose pocket-id if its feature set, stack or BSD-2-Clause licence fits better. Both are self-hostable.