head to head · open source
tinyauth vs oauth2-client
tinyauth has 8,277 GitHub stars, 273 forks, 41 open issues and last shipped today. oauth2-client has 3,819 stars, 770 forks, 64 open issues and last shipped 6 days ago. tinyauth leads on adoption by 117% (8,277 vs 3,819 stars). tinyauth is written in Go under AGPL-3.0; oauth2-client is written in PHP under MIT. tinyauth has attracted 3% as many forks as stars, oauth2-client 20%. tinyauth was the more recently maintained of the two, and both are self-hostable with no licence fee. The two share 2 topic tags (authentication, sso), 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.
← all 20902 open source comparisons
Side by side
| tinyauth | oauth2-client | |
|---|---|---|
| GitHub stars | ★ 8.3K | ★ 3.8K |
| License | AGPL-3.0 | MIT |
| Written in | Go | PHP |
| Last push | 2026-09-22 | 2026-09-16 |
| Forks | ⑂ 273 | ⑂ 770 |
| Self-hosting | Yes | Yes |
| Data ownership | Your server | Your server |
pick tinyauth if
- You weight community size — 8.3K stars and counting
- You want the AGPL-3.0 license terms
- Your stack matches Go
- You value the larger contributor base for long-term maintenance
pick oauth2-client if
- You want the oauth2-client feature set and don't need the biggest community
- You prefer the MIT license terms
- Your stack matches PHP
- You evaluated both and oauth2-client fits your workflow better
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 →
About oauth2-client
league/oauth2 client is an MIT licensed PHP library maintained by The PHP League that provides a reusable base for integrating applications with any OAuth 2.0 service provider, aimed at PHP developers who need to add "Connect with Facebook/Google" style login and token flows without implementing RFC 6749 from scratch.
read the full oauth2-client overview →
More in Security & Privacy
Related comparisons
More Identity & Access Management (IAM) projects
Compare either of these against the rest of the Identity & Access Management (IAM) field.
Frequently asked questions
Is tinyauth or oauth2-client more popular?
tinyauth has 8,277 GitHub stars and oauth2-client has 3,819. tinyauth has the larger community by that measure.
Are tinyauth and oauth2-client free?
Both are open source. tinyauth is licensed under AGPL-3.0 and oauth2-client under MIT. Neither carries a licence fee.
What is the difference between tinyauth and oauth2-client?
tinyauth is written in Go and oauth2-client in PHP. The practical differences are community size, licence terms, language stack and release cadence — all compared in the table above.
Which should I choose, tinyauth or oauth2-client?
Choose tinyauth if you want the larger community (8,277 stars) or its AGPL-3.0 licence terms. Choose oauth2-client if its feature set, stack or MIT licence fits better. Both are self-hostable.