head to head · open source
authelia vs Zitadel
authelia has 29,017 GitHub stars, 1,488 forks, 137 open issues and last shipped today. Zitadel has 15,060 stars, 1,317 forks, 1,171 open issues and last shipped 2 days ago. authelia leads on adoption by 93% (29,017 vs 15,060 stars). authelia is written in Go under Apache-2.0; Zitadel is written in Go under AGPL-3.0. authelia has attracted 5% as many forks as stars, Zitadel 9%. authelia was the more recently maintained of the two, and both are self-hostable with no licence fee. The two share 5 topic tags (2fa, authentication, mfa, oauth2), 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 | Zitadel | |
|---|---|---|
| GitHub stars | ★ 29K | ★ 15K |
| License | Apache-2.0 | AGPL-3.0 |
| Written in | Go | Go |
| Last push | 2026-09-20 | 2026-09-18 |
| Forks | ⑂ 1.5K | ⑂ 1.3K |
| 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 Zitadel if
- You want the Zitadel 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 Zitadel 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 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 →
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Frequently asked questions
Is authelia or Zitadel more popular?
authelia has 29,017 GitHub stars and Zitadel has 15,060. authelia has the larger community by that measure.
Are authelia and Zitadel free?
Both are open source. authelia is licensed under Apache-2.0 and Zitadel under AGPL-3.0. Neither carries a licence fee.
What is the difference between authelia and Zitadel?
authelia is written in Go and Zitadel 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 Zitadel?
Choose authelia if you want the larger community (29,017 stars) or its Apache-2.0 licence terms. Choose Zitadel if its feature set, stack or AGPL-3.0 licence fits better. Both are self-hostable.