head to head · open source
tinyauth vs phpCAS
tinyauth has 8,347 GitHub stars, 280 forks, 41 open issues and last shipped today. phpCAS has 800 stars, 419 forks, 29 open issues and last shipped 3 months ago. tinyauth leads on adoption by 943% (8,347 vs 800 stars). tinyauth is written in Go under AGPL-3.0; phpCAS is written in PHP under Apache-2.0. tinyauth has attracted 3% as many forks as stars, phpCAS 52%. 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.
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Side by side
| tinyauth | phpCAS | |
|---|---|---|
| GitHub stars | ★ 8.3K | ★ 800 |
| License | AGPL-3.0 | Apache-2.0 |
| Written in | Go | PHP |
| Last push | 2026-10-08 | 2026-06-30 |
| Forks | ⑂ 280 | ⑂ 419 |
| 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 phpCAS if
- You want the phpCAS feature set and don't need the biggest community
- You prefer the Apache-2.0 license terms
- Your stack matches PHP
- You evaluated both and phpCAS 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 phpCAS
phpCAS is a PHP authentication library for application developers who need to sign users in through a Central Authentication Service (CAS) server as part of a single sign on setup.
read the full phpCAS overview →
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Frequently asked questions
Is tinyauth or phpCAS more popular?
tinyauth has 8,347 GitHub stars and phpCAS has 800. tinyauth has the larger community by that measure.
Are tinyauth and phpCAS free?
Both are open source. tinyauth is licensed under AGPL-3.0 and phpCAS under Apache-2.0. Neither carries a licence fee.
What is the difference between tinyauth and phpCAS?
tinyauth is written in Go and phpCAS 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 phpCAS?
Choose tinyauth if you want the larger community (8,347 stars) or its AGPL-3.0 licence terms. Choose phpCAS if its feature set, stack or Apache-2.0 licence fits better. Both are self-hostable.