head to head · open source
Authentik vs Zitadel
Authentik has 26,209 GitHub stars, 2,099 forks, 1,074 open issues and last shipped yesterday. Zitadel has 15,499 stars, 1,413 forks, 1,171 open issues and last shipped yesterday. Authentik leads on adoption by 69% (26,209 vs 15,499 stars). Authentik is written in Python under a custom or non-standard licence; Zitadel is written in Go under AGPL-3.0. Authentik has attracted 8% as many forks as stars, Zitadel 9%. Authentik was the more recently maintained of the two, and both are self-hostable with no licence fee. The two share 4 topic tags (authentication, authorization, oauth2, 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
| Authentik | Zitadel | |
|---|---|---|
| GitHub stars | ★ 26K | ★ 15K |
| License | Custom / other | AGPL-3.0 |
| Written in | Python | Go |
| Last push | 2026-11-02 | 2026-11-02 |
| Forks | ⑂ 2.1K | ⑂ 1.4K |
| Self-hosting | Yes | Yes |
| Data ownership | Your server | Your server |
pick Authentik if
- You weight community size — 26K stars and counting
- You want the Custom / other license terms
- Your stack matches Python
- 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 Authentik
What is authentik? authentik is an open source Identity Provider (IdP) for modern SSO. It supports SAML, OAuth2/OIDC, LDAP, RADIUS, and more, designed for self hosting from small labs to large production clusters. Our enterprise offering is available for organizations to securely replace existing IdPs such as Okta, Auth0, Entra ID, and Ping Identity for robust, large scale identity management. Installation Docker Compose: recommended for small/test setups. See the documentation. Kubernetes (Helm Chart): recommended for larger setups. See the documentation and the Helm chart repository. AWS CloudFormation: deploy…
read the full Authentik overview →
About Zitadel
The Identity Infrastructure for Developers ZITADEL is an open source identity and access management platform built for teams that need more than basic auth. Whether you're securing a SaaS product, building a B2B platform, or self hosting a production IAM stack — ZITADEL gives you everything out of the box: SSO, MFA, Passkeys, OIDC, SAML, SCIM, and a battle tested multi tenancy model. No vendor lock in. No compromise on control. Just a robust, API first identity platform you can own. 🏡 Website 💬 Chat 📋 Docs 🧑💻 Blog 📞 Contact Why ZITADEL We built ZITADEL to handle the hardest IAM challenges at scale —…
read the full Zitadel overview →
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Frequently asked questions
Is Authentik or Zitadel more popular?
Authentik has 26,209 GitHub stars and Zitadel has 15,499. Authentik has the larger community by that measure.
Are Authentik and Zitadel free?
Both are open source. Authentik has no licence declared in this registry, and Zitadel is licensed under AGPL-3.0. Both are free to self-host.
What is the difference between Authentik and Zitadel?
Authentik is written in Python 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, Authentik or Zitadel?
Choose Authentik if you want the larger community (26,209 stars) or its Custom / other licence terms. Choose Zitadel if its feature set, stack or AGPL-3.0 licence fits better. Both are self-hostable.