head to head · open source
oauth2-proxy vs pocket-id
oauth2-proxy has 15,319 GitHub stars, 2,259 forks, 285 open issues and last shipped yesterday. pocket-id has 9,965 stars, 349 forks, 98 open issues and last shipped 2 days ago. oauth2-proxy leads on adoption by 54% (15,319 vs 9,965 stars). oauth2-proxy is written in Go under MIT; pocket-id is written in Go under BSD-2-Clause. oauth2-proxy has attracted 15% as many forks as stars, pocket-id 4%. oauth2-proxy was the more recently maintained of the two, and both are self-hostable with no licence fee. The two share 1 topic tag (oidc), 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
| oauth2-proxy | pocket-id | |
|---|---|---|
| GitHub stars | ★ 15K | ★ 10.0K |
| License | MIT | BSD-2-Clause |
| Written in | Go | Go |
| Last push | 2026-11-04 | 2026-11-03 |
| Forks | ⑂ 2.3K | ⑂ 349 |
| Self-hosting | Yes | Yes |
| Data ownership | Your server | Your server |
pick oauth2-proxy if
- You weight community size — 15K stars and counting
- You want the MIT 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 oauth2-proxy
OAuth2 Proxy is a flexible, open source tool that can act as either a standalone reverse proxy or a middleware component integrated into existing reverse proxy or load balancer setups. It provides a simple and secure way to protect your web applications with OAuth2 / OIDC authentication. As a reverse proxy, it intercepts requests to your application and redirects users to an OAuth2 provider for authentication. As a middleware, it can be seamlessly integrated into your existing infrastructure to handle authentication for multiple applications. OAuth2 Proxy supports a lot of OAuth2 as well as OIDC providers…
read the full oauth2-proxy 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 oauth2-proxy or pocket-id more popular?
oauth2-proxy has 15,319 GitHub stars and pocket-id has 9,965. oauth2-proxy has the larger community by that measure.
Are oauth2-proxy and pocket-id free?
Both are open source. oauth2-proxy is licensed under MIT and pocket-id under BSD-2-Clause. Neither carries a licence fee.
What is the difference between oauth2-proxy and pocket-id?
oauth2-proxy 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, oauth2-proxy or pocket-id?
Choose oauth2-proxy if you want the larger community (15,319 stars) or its MIT licence terms. Choose pocket-id if its feature set, stack or BSD-2-Clause licence fits better. Both are self-hostable.