head to head · open source
Zitadel vs tinyauth
Zitadel has 15,075 GitHub stars, 1,323 forks, 1,171 open issues and last shipped yesterday. tinyauth has 8,277 stars, 273 forks, 41 open issues and last shipped today. Zitadel leads on adoption by 82% (15,075 vs 8,277 stars). Zitadel is written in Go under AGPL-3.0; tinyauth is written in Go under AGPL-3.0. Zitadel has attracted 9% as many forks as stars, tinyauth 3%. tinyauth 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, 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
| Zitadel | tinyauth | |
|---|---|---|
| GitHub stars | ★ 15K | ★ 8.3K |
| License | AGPL-3.0 | AGPL-3.0 |
| Written in | Go | Go |
| Last push | 2026-09-21 | 2026-09-22 |
| Forks | ⑂ 1.3K | ⑂ 273 |
| Self-hosting | Yes | Yes |
| Data ownership | Your server | Your server |
pick Zitadel if
- You weight community size — 15K 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 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 Zitadel
Zitadel is an open source identity and access management platform written in Go and released under the AGPL 3.0 license. It lives in the open source IAM ecosystem and provides identity infrastructure for developers who need to operate an authentication and authorization layer themselves.
read the full Zitadel 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 Zitadel or tinyauth more popular?
Zitadel has 15,075 GitHub stars and tinyauth has 8,277. Zitadel has the larger community by that measure.
Are Zitadel and tinyauth free?
Both are open source. Zitadel is licensed under AGPL-3.0 and tinyauth under AGPL-3.0. Neither carries a licence fee.
What is the difference between Zitadel and tinyauth?
Zitadel 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, Zitadel or tinyauth?
Choose Zitadel if you want the larger community (15,075 stars) or its AGPL-3.0 licence terms. Choose tinyauth if its feature set, stack or AGPL-3.0 licence fits better. Both are self-hostable.