head to head · open source
authelia vs pwd.sh
authelia has 29,055 GitHub stars, 1,492 forks, 137 open issues and last shipped today. pwd.sh has 1,563 stars, 136 forks, 0 open issues and last shipped 1 months ago. authelia leads on adoption by 1,759% (29,055 vs 1,563 stars). authelia is written in Go under Apache-2.0; pwd.sh is written in Shell under MIT. authelia has attracted 5% as many forks as stars, pwd.sh 9%. authelia 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
| authelia | pwd.sh | |
|---|---|---|
| GitHub stars | ★ 29K | ★ 1.6K |
| License | Apache-2.0 | MIT |
| Written in | Go | Shell |
| Last push | 2026-09-23 | 2026-08-24 |
| Forks | ⑂ 1.5K | ⑂ 136 |
| Self-hosting | Yes | Yes |
| Data ownership | Your server | Your server |
pick authelia if
- You weight community size — 29K 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 pwd.sh if
- You want the pwd.sh feature set and don't need the biggest community
- You prefer the MIT license terms
- Your stack matches Shell
- You evaluated both and pwd.sh fits your workflow better
About authelia
Authelia is an open source authentication and authorization server written in Go that provides single sign on and multi factor authentication for web applications through a web portal, aimed at self hosters and platform teams who need to protect services sitting behind a reverse proxy.
read the full authelia overview →
About pwd.sh
pwd.sh is a Bash script that manages text secrets such as passwords by storing each one in a GnuPG symmetric encrypted file, and it is for people who work in a terminal and prefer to keep their own encrypted store rather than hand it to a hosted password service.
read the full pwd.sh overview →
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Frequently asked questions
Is authelia or pwd.sh more popular?
authelia has 29,055 GitHub stars and pwd.sh has 1,563. authelia has the larger community by that measure.
Are authelia and pwd.sh free?
Both are open source. authelia is licensed under Apache-2.0 and pwd.sh under MIT. Neither carries a licence fee.
What is the difference between authelia and pwd.sh?
authelia is written in Go and pwd.sh in Shell. The practical differences are community size, licence terms, language stack and release cadence — all compared in the table above.
Which should I choose, authelia or pwd.sh?
Choose authelia if you want the larger community (29,055 stars) or its Apache-2.0 licence terms. Choose pwd.sh if its feature set, stack or MIT licence fits better. Both are self-hostable.