head to head · open source
authelia vs tinyauth
authelia has 29,041 GitHub stars, 1,490 forks, 137 open issues and last shipped today. tinyauth has 8,277 stars, 273 forks, 41 open issues and last shipped today. authelia leads on adoption by 251% (29,041 vs 8,277 stars). authelia is written in Go under Apache-2.0; tinyauth is written in Go under AGPL-3.0. authelia has attracted 5% as many forks as stars, tinyauth 3%. authelia was the more recently maintained of the two, and both are self-hostable with no licence fee. The two share 3 topic tags (2fa, authentication, golang), 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
| authelia | tinyauth | |
|---|---|---|
| GitHub stars | ★ 29K | ★ 8.3K |
| License | Apache-2.0 | AGPL-3.0 |
| Written in | Go | Go |
| Last push | 2026-09-22 | 2026-09-22 |
| Forks | ⑂ 1.5K | ⑂ 273 |
| 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 tinyauth if
- You want the tinyauth feature set and don't need the biggest community
- You prefer the AGPL-3.0 license terms
- Your stack matches Go
- You evaluated both and tinyauth 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 tinyauth
Tinyauth is a small Go authentication and authorization server that runs either as authentication middleware in front of self hosted applications or as a standalone authentication server, and it is aimed at self hosters and homelab operators who want OpenID Certified™ single sign on without deploying a large identity platform.
read the full tinyauth overview →
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Frequently asked questions
Is authelia or tinyauth more popular?
authelia has 29,041 GitHub stars and tinyauth has 8,277. authelia has the larger community by that measure.
Are authelia and tinyauth free?
Both are open source. authelia is licensed under Apache-2.0 and tinyauth under AGPL-3.0. Neither carries a licence fee.
What is the difference between authelia and tinyauth?
authelia is written in Go and tinyauth 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, authelia or tinyauth?
Choose authelia if you want the larger community (29,041 stars) or its Apache-2.0 licence terms. Choose tinyauth if its feature set, stack or AGPL-3.0 licence fits better. Both are self-hostable.